Full Report: Installed E55 -Avantgarde tailights (Pics)
 

Today i went to pick up the last light i was waiting for...finally :)

I decided today was assembling day :)

This is how the lights look:

OEM vs. E55 (Avantgarde)
 

The difference between OEM lights and the NEW Avantgarde :

Now for the installation...
 

This is how the OEM lights (in the fender) are viewed from the trunk , after taking off the protection. There are 3 bolts to unscrew and 1 to loosen up a bit:

Took out he light...
 

And he stays like this:

Now
 

After taking the fender light out , it comes the Trunk light , which is tighten by 2 bolts and 1 "bolt-sorted" that you only have to loosen up a bit. You can see where the two bolts fit in this picture:

Now, for the less good news
 

When i went to install the fender light, it fitted 100% , regarding the trunk light , well , what shall i do now. i couldn´t insert the light in, because it´s inner shape is a little different from the OEM one.

Conclusion: "I WILL INSTALL THE LIGHTS" :) What do now? I instantly remember my DREMEL tool , and checked where did the E55 lights get stuck...The inner plastic was bigger than my OEM lights. Result, went to get the DREMEL and started cutting off the "excessive plastic". Cool images like this were real today :

Can you really see what i´m doing?
 

Yeah, i´m really cutting it off :)

But that wasn´t it...
 

After cutting the necessary plastic , i realize , when fixing it, that the issolative sponge that comes with the light is excessive too, making the light to stick out a bit....



THen, i remember my melting tool and made that sponge a little thinnier :)

But...
 

After doing that i got something like this:

and this:
 

I couldn´t take more after-installation pics, since it was almost night and it was raining too. After having the car clean and shining i´ll snap some good pics :)


Conclusion: It´s true that i took about 2,5/3 hours to install it , but it looks gorgeous :)



Thanks for your time :)

Nice! E 280? What kind of engine is in that car?

Jame55 The engine is prolly from the C280 6 cylinder. Looks like Lorinser is from Portugal and it seems they make E-classes with smaller engines.

Lorinser, thanks for the pics. I've got a cracked avantgarde tailight that I'm going to need replaced. If you don't mind I think I'm going to use your pics as a guide to installation.

You da man!
 

Lorinser - thanks much for posting with such detail. The closest anyone previously came to helping was by saying 'you will need to file the plastic a bit' before installing the trunk lights. Looks like a lot more than a little filing. I still want to do the conversion, but it seems a bit more difficult than I previously thought.....I dont have those two tools you have as well. Any tips on how I could do this with other tools, or do I need to go get a little hand held grinder like your dremel tool, and a melter? Thanks again for posting with pics!! :)

Lorinser-thanks for the info. i will have to try it out as well.

Dave-if you don't have the dremel, the manual work around is sandpaper. cheap, but will take a lot longer...good luck.

Well...
 

With this post i can show you that it wasn´t how the guys at Mercedes told me... They told me it was a direct bolt-in piece :(


I think it´s worth the time and patience :) Ehehe, with a Sandpaper you´ll take all the eternity :D



But buy a DREMEL man, it´s cheap and it´s a multi-function tool! You can do alot of things with it!

i couldn´t take more pics today, because it is still raining over here , not cold, but this damn rain....grrrrrrrr



P.S : the 2800cc motor develops 200hp and it´s very similar to the E320 :)

AMGGuy

Why would they make an E-class with smaller engine?http://community.theunderdogs.org/sm.../iwstupidl.gif Sorry just doesn't seem to make sense unless it has something to do with emissions in Portugal? http://community.theunderdogs.org/smiley/prank/spit.gif

other countries
 

As far as i've read, in other countries and places like europe, they have five or six different horsepower or engine choices - and many of them really low by american standards. I think since gas is relatively really cheap here in the US, we like cars with more horsepower and like to step on it. Most likely we'd feel differently if it were $5 a gallon. Hmm maybe thats why 70% of Europe drives diesels :p

One more question -
 

This may sound pretty basic, be warned-But hey, I dont make my living wrenching :-)

I have figured out how to remove the protective carpet/liner from behind the brake light on the body - but how do you remove it from the trunk, so that you can access the lights?

JamE55,

Lightman is right on! gas costs muchos dineros over in Europe so they drive diesels, turbo diesels, or smaller displacement gas engines. We Americans are truly blessed with low gas prices and E-classes that can go 0-60 in 4.8 secs. vs. $5+ gas prices and 0-60 in like 10 secs!

In a lot of the Asian countries (Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, etc.) the prices of import vehicles are like double what we pay here in the US. So an upgrade of $5000 here from a V6 to V8 in those countries becomes a $10,000 upgrade. So the incremental costs are much greater than it is for us here in the US. Also, in many of those countries, their tax/registration fee is directly related to the displacement of their engine. So all these factors plus the high cost of gasoline really makes it impractical for them to have big engines. Also I believe in Japan, a street legal car cannot exceed a set horsepower limit...

it´s not that way...
 

It´s very true that here the gas is too much expensive, comparing to your country. That´s why here you see lots of turbodiesels and stuff.

E-classes here we have E200 diesel , E220 diesel, E300 diesel, E220 CDI, E270 CDI and E320 CDI , E280, E320 , E 420 and E55 AMG ...


But in compensation , we have lots of cars you don´t have there, high performance cars. Like the 1st generation Turbo Impreza, Nissan Sunny GTR, Lancer EVO 3, 4, 5, 6 ,7, Honda´s with powerful engiens you don´t see there, and lots of other high performance small cars, like the Citroen Saxo Cup, Citroen ZX 16V (2000cc with 170hp , lightweight) and inumerous cars i don´t remember now....


I wish the gas here was priced like yours :)

The socialists and ecoterrorists in Europe also like to impose an annual tax based on the hp/displacement of your engine.
Once you break certain barriers, you must be punished.
So glad I moved here for school when I was 18 and stayed!

Got it! Does make sense.

Thanks AMGGuy!

JamE55, the US and Canada are probably the only countries where these smaller engines are not sold. Mercedes is only trying to sell the more expensive models here. Euro E-Class cars are also available without wood trim, have cloth seats, no moonroofs, steel wheels with plastic hub caps, etc. That is the reason most taxi's in Europe are E-Class sedans. Euros have the option of buying a very basic E-Class. Mercedes could actually sell us a E240 without all the frills and sell it in the high $20k. But that is not going to happen!

I have seen a guy near my office with a right-hand drive E230 sedan with hub caps. That E-Class has the 2.3 liter 4 banger.

4 banger sounds like a ricer in a benz body. lol! :p