I'm ready to order new '07 tail light lenses (clear middle lens) for my all red '03 lenses on my SL-500. I heard they will fit flawlessly and I want your OK on this...fellow forum members. Also, how difficult are they to install if I did it myself, or should I just make an appointment with my Mercedes body shop to do it quickly. I'm not concerned about the cost to do it if it's difficult and done right. How much should it cost to exchange the lenses?

Stan

Buy the lens at Duval mercedes in Jacksonville, Fla. They've the best price. Do a search here and you'll find the pdf for the DIY install, takes a couple hours. Yes, the '07 lens works on '03's cuz I have '03 SL and paid my dealer $200 for the '07 lens install. I believe they were 365 each, n o tax.

Just bought 2 on Ebay with "Buy it Now" option. Brand new in Box, and Mercedes OEM. The seller has good reputation. Paid $608.00 for both lenses. My dealer said he'll install them for less than $100.00 (body shop technician).

Wonder if my perfect Red '03 taillight lenses have any value to anyone. The car only has 8000 miles on it so they certainly look like new.

Thanks for confirming the OK status to using these lenses.

Stan

You may want to advertise in the 4 sale/trade section on this forum & benzworld. I recently sold 2 pair of the '03 model tail lights ($75 pair + shipping) to forum members when I made a brief reply stating that I had a take-off pair after upfitting with the 'o7 amg lens'... due to my car being black, the hidden-smoked middle portion looks cool, and there's more led's in the '07-up lens too.

Good Success!

Had my new TAIL LIGHTs installed today. All I can say is WOW. They look great, and the added bonus was that these assemblies come with LED's. What a great look on a Brilliant Silver SL500! They were bought on EBay and I bought them for $608.00. They arrived in an MB Box and were definitely OEM. My Dealer's body shop installed them. Because I tipped the installer $20, he had his supervisor prepare my bill. It was a grand total of $45.00 for the install...and he worked for about 2 hours.
Life is Good!

Stan

Any thoughts on changing the trunk light???

I think the tail lights NOW match the trunk light. The trunk light is L.E.D., it appears. The overall appearance is really improved now.

Stan

I wasn't aware that any SLs had non-LED taillights. Did early 03s not?

I'd agree that swapping tail lights is the single best thing 03-06 owners can do to improve the car visually. The new tail lights aren't an exact match for the old trunk lights though. The new tails/trunks are slightly lighter red. The LED pattern is also different in the new tails, with more distinct diodes. It's my impression that the amber of the turn signals look different too, probably because of the differences in red tint and clear.

I'd love to see a pic of what you are referring to...I find the look with the new tails matching quite closely to the trunk. Maybe it's just me, but others I've shown it too think the look is great.

Stan

I put the 03 sl55 lenses in I think they look alot better then the all red

i put the 07-08 amg tails in mine and it looks much better imo. here's a pic.

I thought about updating my tail lights since I have an OB SL. Then I thought.... why should I pay nearly $700 to get those when I can just tint the middle part of my tail lights to a dark grey. Any thoughts?

Because the 07's are LED.

The 03/04 are LED, too. Are there extra LED's somewhere I don't know about?

No, there aren't any extra LEDs, just slightly different looking ones, and the middle portion is back-up and turns anyway.

That being said, I think tinting on top of the red may yield a brown/black mess that could potentially look like ***. The AMG lights have a light smoke tint that's going to be hard to achieve without a clearish base.

Is there any difference with the new model 2008??
From the photos it looks no but does anyone check it?
does the 2008 amg will use the same rear lights of amg 2007?

Yeah, I had my 2003 lights upgraded to the LEDs too, and they look so much better, especially at night, really sexy and bright! But I installed them myself in the garage, took about 2 hrs.

The 03/04 are not LED, look at the pics. There is a huge difference in taillights.

2003 SL55:



2007 SL55:

Does anyone make fully-smoked assemblies? I thought I had seen some and was wondering if they were manually done or purchased.

[QUOTE=Addicted2Speed;2798646]The 03/04 are not LED, look at the pics. There is a huge difference in taillights.
QUOTE]

The 03/04 are LED or they wouldn't be a plug and play swap with the 07.

The tinting on the housing is different as can be seen in your daylight pics but at night the LEDs look basically the same with the new ones being brighter and a slightly different shape.

I just brought some 2007 back light for my 2004 SL500. I am looking for instruction on how to install them. Can anybody help, I have search the internet with no luck. Thanks.

The SL has had LED's since 2003. I am not sure why you guys think otherwise. They are the exact same LED, too. The CL and S has had LED since 2000.....why would they not put LED on a model starting in 2003?

The pics you show have the same LED tailights. The SL55 one looks like was taken with flash and thus you can see the reflection of the LED better than in the top pic.

To be honest, I am not sure why anyone is getting the red/clear tails. The 2009 has the same red/smoked ones on the 2007-2008 SL55. They did away with the red/clear ones.

Sainteyes, no need to search the internet beyond this site.

https://mbworld.org/forums/showthrea...626&highlight=

Thanks SDSL I followed the instruction to the tee and had them install in a couple of hours. Pretty easy.

As for the LED's in the new tail light, since I just installed mine today I got to take a real good look at them. The 2004 tail lights and the 2007 tail light with the clear strip are very different in appearance whether the lights are on or off.
I know they both have LED's but they are more pronounce in the newer tail lights, you can almost count each LED's that how bright and clear they are. In the older tail lights they blend together more like one big light.

When the lights are off the street lights hit the clear strip and make it look like diamonds are glowing in your tail lights. The old ones don't pop like that, I think the red lens is too dull for that and not as see through as the newer red and white lens.

I chose white over smoked because it look brighter on my light Silver SL500 with Grey interior. I think the smoked tail lights looks better on darker color cars with darker interior.

Well that my 2 cents hope it helps.

Sainteyes, glad it worked out for you and good description of the differences in appearance between old and new.

MJR, I hadn't heard that. And in this boarder's post it looks like his new 09 has the same red/clear as on the 07/08. I have read that they are only sending over new SLs with the AMG sport trim package for the US market.