I have an E320 with the passenger side parking light out. I figured it was the bulb so when I pulled it out it looked fine. Swaping it for the other one revealed nothing wrong with the bulb, so bringing out the tester I tested 12.3 Volts at the socket. So is this some kind of electronic trickery to get me to take it to the dealer? How can I have power at the plug & a good bulb and a good connection but no light?
Very strange.
look closely at the bulb.
flick it.
watch the element vibrate back and forth making a intermittent connection.
replace bulb.
Also check the ground, if it grounds through the light look at the area that the socket sits for burned contacts. When you swaped did you put the working bulb from the other side into the non working side?
isn't the E class supposed to fix itself?
Front parking light or rear tail light? Some European cars, if not most have a rear fog light on the left side that makes us crazy 'mericans think a bulb is out on the right.
good call on the fog light, I had forgotten about that
Quote from: caperix on October 08, 2009, 02:37:09 PM
Also check the ground, if it grounds through the light look at the area that the socket sits for burned contacts. When you swaped did you put the working bulb from the other side into the non working side?
Same bulb from other side.
Quote from: Ducaholic on October 09, 2009, 04:18:36 AM
Front parking light or rear tail light? Some European cars, if not most have a rear fog light on the left side that makes us crazy 'mericans think a bulb is out on the right.
Front parking light not the fog lamp.
Ok Ill look at his stuff again tonight. Got busy with some other stuff.
could just be a gremlin, then... my car has a few, and I've just learned to live with it
PM Sent
You checked for power at the socket, but did you check for a good ground?
I used to work for MB USA in Austin TX as a tech.
Check the tabs on the light socket for burned contacts, as well as corrosion in the socket where the bulb contacts the actual socket. I used to replace the bulb first, if that didn't work, replace the socket too. ("test drive" a used car and swap the good one out) ;D
I figured it out. Mostly. This time I used the test light as well. The test light would come on, although dimly. and this time I got no voltage reading at the socket. Very strange because the other night when my wife drove it home, the light was on. Anyway long story short I discovered a resistor in some heat shrink tubing on the hot wire inside the light housing. (This wire runs in series with the headlight itself) it was cleverly concealed in between the main headlight portion and the parking light portion. It had semi self destructed and was working intermittently and had started to burn the adjacent wires..
So I took out the offending unit and now that light is super bright! Both the headlight and parking light. The driver side seems to be sort of dim now.
So now do I figure out how much resistance to put back in on the passenger side, or remove the resistance from the driver side too?
Quote from: D on November 02, 2009, 07:47:47 AM
I figured it out. Mostly. This time I used the test light as well. The test light would come on, although dimly. and this time I got no voltage reading at the socket. Very strange because the other night when my wife drove it home, the light was on. Anyway long story short I discovered a resistor in some heat shrink tubing on the hot wire inside the light housing. (This wire runs in series with the headlight itself) it was cleverly concealed in between the main headlight portion and the parking light portion. It had semi self destructed and was working intermittently and had started to burn the adjacent wires..
So I took out the offending unit and now that light is super bright! Both the headlight and parking light. The driver side seems to be sort of dim now.
So now do I figure out how much resistance to put back in on the passenger side, or remove the resistance from the driver side too?
You might be able to measure the resistance of the driver side and then replace the res on the passenger side with the correct value.
mitt