There is actually a tool made for this purpose, the name is “lamp extractor”. It was developed for the telephone industry for the little incandescent bulbs used on the operator switchboards and the older key system business phones. They continue to be used on industrial control panels for removing incandescent bulbs in operator devices. Just looked on eBay and there were several offered in the $10-20 range.

A piece of rubber tubing also works very well for this.

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The OM 642/722.9 powered family
Still going strong
2014 ML350 Bluetec (wife's DD)
2013 E350 Bluetec (my DD)

both my kids cars went to junkyard in 2023
2008 ML320 CDI (Older son’s DD) fatal transmission failure, water soaked/fried rear SAM, numerous other issues, just too far gone to save (165k miles)
2008 E320 Bluetec (Younger son's DD) injector failed open and diluted oil with diesel, spun main bearings (240k miles)

1998 E300DT sold to TimFreeh
1987 300TD sold to vstech