I discovered the other day that 2 (of the 3) tabs that locate the driver's side headlight (and provide position adjustment) on my 2003 SL55 had broken. Looking on ebay for a reasonable replacement headlight ($450 plus seems common), I came across an add that mentioned one of its tabs had been repaired with the factory kit. Now, I had never heard of this as an option so I poked around and found that this kit replaced the 2 weak tabs and was as little as $40 (comes with a replacement for the upper and inner tabs and the 6 screws to secure them into the cast-in provisions in the headlight).
https://www.mbdirectparts.com/oem-pa...ket-2308200914

looking into this further, I found that it was consistently listed as being for 2005-2012 R230 ..... in fact, one seller's search tool ... at amazon, ebay or an official MBZ site even popped up with the message that it was NOT compatible with my car after I filled in the fields. But I decided to look a little deeper and found a picture of a headlight that was using the kit that had the same cast-in number as I found on the rear of my headlight (shown in one of the pics attached). Not saying that it will work on all 2003/2004, but it works on my 2003 (so you may want to compare your cast-in number if you have a 2003-2004.


Installation was easy enough. the headlight NEEDS to come out of the car which requires the bumper be removed (or at least un-fastened on the side you are working on). The kit comes with a replacement for the upper and inner tabs and the 6 screws to secure them and some weak instructions that suggest you refer to an illustration that does not seem to exist (so you can look at my photos and get the clarification you might need) . You do need to trim the broken tabs off (use the replacements as a guide for where that trimming should take place. There is room to repair the headlight at the point where it become the gusseting for the original tab(s), so you may want to repair any cracks to make your finished project as bullet proof as possible.


Bumper only need be released on one side to do this, but I had mine off for other reasons

This is the number that is cast-in the back of my 2003 headlight that led me to believe the kit would work for me ... and it did

broken inner tab

broken upper tab

$40 kit from mercedes

headlight manufacturer cast-in the screw hols for the repair parts. This tab broke off taking half of the vertical screw hole, so I cut off part of the broken tab and glued it on BEFORE installing the repair part.

I had to trim off the inner side tab ...


When you are done, it should look like this.

Here is the headlight with both repair parts installed ....

And back on the car

Cheers,
Chris

 

Nice work!

 

Thanks! Do you think an impact caused the breakage? Or does the plastic just become brittle?

 

congratulations on your work and for contributing it to the forum. It is a great idea to buy those repair kits without having to buy the new headlight. There are many models of cars, in my vw golf I installed them and saved myself from buying the headlight. Soon I will have to disassemble the front bumper to change a parking sensor that does not work well, could you explain how I can disassemble the bumper? thank you

 

If you are looking for instructions on bumper removal, I have attached them below.
If you are just needing info on taking the sensors out, I merely removed the complete bumper assembly and then re-installed it this time (it has been some time since I have disassembled the bumper though it seems like it was VERY straight forward ... some release tabs and perhaps a screw or 2). I have had occasionally flaky parking sensors on this car in the past, but time and re-seating the connectors have seemed to cure them .

Cheers,
Chris

 

There was/is no brittle-ness , just some low-speed trauma (sub 5mph tap into a mini van that stopped when it should have go'd : (

On a related note, I found a paint that matches the trim (grill) very nicely. Attached are a couple of pics of the damage and respray.

Cheers,
Chris

Light damage to grill (that occurred at the same time as the headlight tab damage).




Close up of grill damage. I thought briefly about buying a new or used replacement, but this one was was already modified for Laser countermeasures (so fixing the damage seemed to make more sense then buying another and cutting it up again)




filled in with some "medium-strand" bondo and coated with some high-build primer




This is the primer and top-coat that I used. Worth noting, last coat of the "shimmer" needs to be a heavy (wet) coat.





Ready to go back on the car




All back together : )

 

Good job, you have to find solutions before buying new parts, I'm glad that the end of your work was perfect.