btshep

Hey Guys,

I just wanted to let you all know it is possible to install the led taillights from the 2010 and up model year on a pre-facelift W164. I reached out to Steve Krabbenborg (mbenznl) in The Netherlands. In order to do this retrofit you just swap out the taillights themselves on a 2010 and up if you have the regular halogen housings. If you happen to have a 2006 to 2009 than you need to swap out the rear signal acquisition module (SAM) as well the tail light housings. As many of you may or may not know back in January of 2007 I was the first person to install the chinese LED tails available on ebay. I posted a very detailed pictorial of the install here along with the Brabus door panels. So fast forward to 2010. I decided it was time to part with the chinese LEDs on my truck. Send me a private message if you would like to buy them. I went ahead and had Steve send me the SAM R and OEM LED Taillights. This modification is not a cheap one. The chinese leds can be found for $280 on ebay. The OEM option comes in at $698.50 roughly for a pre-facelift ML (Euro to USD rate). Cheaper if you do not need the SAM R obviously I had a package sitting on my porch from The Netherlands when I arrived home from work last night and hope to have the modification complete by the weekend. Stay Tuned

DJ GAINS BOND

GOOD luck

btshep

here are four initial pictures of what I received from Steve

rear SAM top



rear SAM bottom



The LED Taillights

btshep

The installation is complete. I have to go to work so here's a teaser for now. more to come later....

uhaveit

I love LED's for auto tail lights and this LED lights on a ML looks amazing

$700 is a great deal if you can do it yourself

ababians

Hello, I want to know if you did the reprogram after you have installed the tail lights and the sam.

Thanks.

Could you tell me the teilenumber of the sam?

ababians

I think the pics you put is about fuse and relay box not about sam

Firenza

BTW, are the plug connectors same? Or do you need to modify the plugs?

Brisk335

bump for more info on this, i want to do this project on my ML asap. OEM lights.

birjuh

Hey, great work up on your mod! I have an '06 and have been wanting to retrofit the LED tails for awhile. I'm curious...why did you replace the Chinese ones with OEMs? Other than a quality issue, is there an appearance change that I'm not catching? You also mentioned having to get a new SAM; I feel like I've seen eBay LED tails claiming that they have resistors or some mechanism to bypass the car's computer. Need a SAM for that?

Thanks in advance!

dieselsrule

I have noticed that all of the EBAY lights still use incandescent bulbs for the turn signal. It appears that the MB lights are ALL led, not just brake and tail as in the Chinese lights.

Can you give us a night time photo?

crtfour

Do you have a part number for the SAM?