I am about to purchase an E55. The seller advertised it has having bi-xenons. I am 750 miles away from the vehicle. I had an inspection done at an MB dealer, but forgot to ask if it had bi-xenons. I emailed the seller and now he says he can't confirm 100%, as the car is not at his location. Is there any way to tell by the VIN or in the MB service systyem if it was thus equipped?

 

if you have the vin#, call a mercedes-benz dealer and give them the vin, they can run it on the computer and get all the options for that particular car. You will not be able to tell just by decoding the vin, particular option information is not included in the vin number.

 

This is the car:

http://vipimports.com/E55.php

I already have a deposit on it but another member here told me to double check. Is there any way to tell by looking at the pictures?

 

Looks from the picture in the listing that it has bi-xenons.

 

I don't think a company like this will lie to u just for the xenon light, just make sure no accident report and should be a good deal.

 

medici78,

I am personal friends with Daniel over at VIP, he sold my old Supra and we've done other business transactions. I can assure you, if he says it has xenons, the car has xenons. You are buying from an upstanding individual and will not be disappointed.

-m

 

I am afraid that this vehicle does NOT have factory installed xenon headlamps. If it did, there would be headlamp washer cutouts in the front bumper. It still may have xenons but it was not the factory option. I love that color btw!

 

Daniel has been great with me. I am just concerned that the car might not be as advertised. I don't believe anyone lied, I think maybe there might have been a mistake made somewhere. As I have found out in the last couple of days, the Xenons come with the washer things, and this one doesn't have them. Moreover, I had a dealer fax me a copy of the Master Report from the Mercedes-Benz system, and Xenons are not on the option list.
I REALLY, REALLY hope it has the xenons.

 

It may have aftermarket Xenons, but without headlight washers, they're not original. With the retrofit, I assume you're not going to have the curve sensing or maybe even the self leveling. The real question is is this really important to you? I have them but really, living in the city, it's not that big of a deal.

 

Xenons on a car this expensive is VERY important to me. I had them on my M3 and I can't imagine buying a car costing $25k more and not having them.

 

Then you better do some more research because something is fishy.

 

medici78,

That may be the case then, if you want I can contact Daniel personally and discuss the car with him for you. It's odd that E55s don't come standard with Xenons, but I guess there are enough people that don't want them. :shrug:

-m

 

Nope, no Xenons. Daniel confirmed it after pretty much doing the same reseach I did. The car is located in a different state as him and his associate made the assumption that the car came with them as standard. Frankly, I think most people would also assume the same without having much experience with this car. We were both at a loss as to why the hell Mercedes-Benz makes xenons an option on an $80k+ car. As you said, he is a stand-up guy and was very open to my suggestions and offered to return my deposit immediately if I wanted to back out of the deal. However, we came to an agreement. It looks like I will be buying the car after all.
However, as soon as I get it home, I'll be installing a set of xenons.

 

Good to hear medici78, hope it all works out and welcome to the club.

-m

 

Congrats. With the Xenon upgrades you'll be all set.

 

that tectite gray is too rare to pass up imo. Just have the xenons installed, the headlamp washers are useless anyway.

 

Make sure if you get them installed you get the self levelling feature installed as well.

You can read all about people doing this and not being able to do this on certain cars in the W211 forum.

I like the washer feature, I have used it about 10 times and each time it really made a huge difference.

Also, you are right, why does MB USA not include it as standard. The E500 and E55 in Canada comes with BiXenon's standard as you would expect on a car that is a "luxury" sedan.

 

I've been told by several sources that the self-levelling feature is not functional when retrofitting them. As for the washers, I had them on my old W124 benzes (300E and 300CE) as well as the M3 I am trading-in towards the E55. Pretty much useless for my purposes, though I loved the little wipers on the W124's.