The female socket/plug that connects the wiring to the headlight bulb on my 124 is pretty badly singed. Are these fairly easy to replace or should I be thinking about trying to repair it? I remember someone on the forum posted a photo of plugs that had been done in by high wattage bulbs and mine looks pretty much like that but strangely only on one side. I'm using a "high output" off the shelf Sylvania halogen bulb but my plug was damaged before I bought the car and the new bulbs don't seem to have made it much worse. Anyone had any experience trying to deal with this problem?

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LRG
1987 300D Turbo 175K
2006 Toyota Prius, efficent but no soul
1985 300 TDT(130K miles of trouble free motoring)now sold

Replacing the socket itself should be fairly easy. You should be able to just pry the cover off and then remove the wires with their pins attached. Then you place the wires and pins into the new socket in their proper locations and snap the cover on. The part numbers should be on the socket and the plug. Most likely their will be a separate part number for the socket and the plug. The total cost for both will probably be less than $10.00.

I do have one concern, however. When the heat built up in the wiring enough to char your connector it may have also made the insulation on the wiring brittle. Check to make sure that none of the insulation toward the end of the wiring is hard or, worse yet, broken off. You may need to trim it back and put new ends on it if that is the case.

what bulbs should we be using in our 124s?

I have a burnt out female socket as described above - now the headlight is out and I will have to go about replacing the female socket as described above.

does anyone know why the fuse didnt blow before my female socket totally melted down?

My 124 300D 2.5T was like this as well. It looked like it happened a while ago, before I got the car, and it was strangely only the passenger side female socket that was singed. I cut the old one off and put a new one on. So far it hasn't singed yet since... I did find it quite strange though that it was like this.

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1991 MB 300D 2.5 Turbo (207000km) (now gone)
1993 Audi 100 CS Quattro (300000km)
1999 VW Jetta TDI (290000km)
2002 Audi A6 3.0 Quattro (150000km)
2005 MB E320 CDI (34000km)

on my lunch break i went over to the stealership and they told me they dont sell that part separately. they wanted me to purchase the whole headlight assembly for 500 bucks! !

can you tell me where you got the female socket piece?

I had the same response from my local dealer. I found the female socket at the local McParts for about $4.00 and spliced it in. Since it's in a location that can get some weather I actually soldered the wires at the splice and used heat shrink tubing to seal it all up so it would be completely water tight. That should take care of your problem.

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LRG
1987 300D Turbo 175K
2006 Toyota Prius, efficent but no soul
1985 300 TDT(130K miles of trouble free motoring)now sold

I bought the female socket at Canadian Tire. It's a standard socket so they are easy to find at any auto parts store or that type of place..

And yes, I cut the wires and spliced it in. Didn't take very long.

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1991 MB 300D 2.5 Turbo (207000km) (now gone)
1993 Audi 100 CS Quattro (300000km)
1999 VW Jetta TDI (290000km)
2002 Audi A6 3.0 Quattro (150000km)
2005 MB E320 CDI (34000km)

done (socket found at autozone for 4.99), I will never go back to the stealership for any reason whatsoever.

thanks for being there forum...

There are some thing you have to buy at the stealerhip. Try finding touch-up paint sometime. Or the grommet for your shifter linkage.

-BOB-

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1991 350SD (updated rods)
Biodiesel B100 when I can find it.
Dino when really cold outside

You may want to consider adding a set of "Plug and Play Upgrade Wire Harness" that are made to tolerate higher heat than the factory connectors. Check my write up here for links.

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