Rascally Wabbit

Thinking about a headlight bulb upgrade. MB offers an upgraded H7, p/n A0009980007 which is still a 55w as OEM. Osram offers a 65w Rally bulb & Piaa has a 65w night-tech bulb. Anyone have experience with any of these?
Already thought about heat issues but the aftermarket bulbs mentioned apparently from my research do not cause a problem with the plastic lens & reflectors. TIA!

pgeller

I use the Osram 64217 65w bulbs in all my H7 vehicles (GLK350 included). They are much brighter (2100lm vs. 1400lm) and a bit whiter. Excellent visibility. Get them from Candlepower, great prices (10 for $170).

pg

Rascally Wabbit

You choice, a good one, is actually the rally bulb, with about 400lm over the night tech bulbs & way brighter than the OEM. Due to the observatory near where we live, the restrictions on commercial night lighting is the tightest, hence no street lights. It is dark & I see the Milky Way almost every evening. Always on the watch for mule deer & javelina at night but a brighter light will be nice.

sethro1980

I see a few people have described converting their halogens to HID. I would like to do this but I'm worried about the light not being focused properly, since it is not designed for HID currently. To confuse me more, I see photos posted with GLK headlamps that don't look like mine that are the stock halogen housings. Mine don't have the circular reflectors. Did the headlights change for 2013? I will do the Osram bulbs if I can't go the HID route, but HID is my preference.

tigerdog

I understand the GLK headlights are CANBUS-controlled. This was true of the lights on my VW Passat, also. In the VW, the voltage delivered to the headlights was tightly regulated and under CANBUS control, limited to some fraction of the bulb's max (typically 12.6 or 12.8V) to extend bulb life. Upping the voltage to 13+ (within bulb tolerance) made a notable difference in light output.

Does anyone know if the GLK headlamp voltage is similarly programmable?