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I have a 2005 CLS 55 AMG. The headlights have different beam patterns. The left (driver side) one was also less bright. I was planning on painting the inner silver part of the headlights black. I did this change myself over the weekend. When I took the headlights apart, I also cleaned the lenses. The reflector (inner reflective silver part) on both headlights looked good. After reassembly, the brightness increased, but the beam pattern did not change. Is this the factory beam pattern on the CLS, or are my lights not the same? They looked exactly the same from the outside and inside. The headlights are factory bi-xenon with cornering function. All functions work perfectly. The xenon bulbs is also new. I checked the the bulbs position again, but nothing changed.
good news - you already know how to fix this problem.
The original Hella e55 projectors were state of the art at the time and a lot of 'retrofitters' sought them out during the 2010s.
Two issues that now make them fall short of even their original ability.
1) the internal wiring degrades, massively. If you've had the housing open you may have noticed as soon as you move any component the wiring crumbles.
2) the reflector component of the low beam projector - the back of the 'bowl'- loses its reflectivity. Normally easy to tell when looking from the outside directly into the lense, it appears smokey.
The fix is, go on alibaba and buy some NHK GB-BRT xenon replacement projectors, or, if you prefer, a variety of LED projectors. Just make sure you specify if your car has AFS or not.
If you go xenon, buy some decent bulbs like Osram CBI or Philips Nightbreakers - stick to the 4300k range - and you will be blown away.
Open the headlights again, don't let the rubber butyl seal touch the chrome sections of the housing or big probs - throw then new bits in and potentailly a new set of outer lenses on (again, cheap. $60 off any online store) and you'll be laughing.
Thank you for your answer. I understand the problem but my problem is mainly not the weaker brigthness, rather the beam pattern difference. The lower part of the left lamp has no patterned light at all, not just weaker. The silver chrome layer inside the lamp did not appear cracked or incomplete, it looked similar to the silver-plated part of the other lamp. However, the projected image is completely different. The lower part of the left lamp is completely missing, not just dimmer, but there is a sharp cut separating the dark and light parts, as if it were directly like that.
I found a video where you can see the beam of light. Based on this, the beam of light from my cls left lamp looks normal. In the video, the dark and light parts are also sharply separated.
Ok - it sound like you need to spend some time aligning the lights, find a flat surface, with a nice clean wall, and drive back 60 ft and hit the wall with ur lights, Start working on getting them lined up via the hotspots vertically and then line them up horizontally to your preferred cutoff..
You can't expect to pull the lights out and mess with the housings and for them to go back in aligned.
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