Well mine does. When you pull out the headlight knob that turns on the fog lights. And I believe it is the fog lights that come on after you close the door. I think Ali might be right.

Mike

__________________
1998 C230 330,000 miles (currently dead of second failed EIS, yours will fail too, turning you into the dealer's personal human cash machine)
1988 F150 144,000 miles (leaks all the colors of the rainbow)
Previous stars: 1981 Brava 210,000 miles, 1978 128 150,000 miles, 1977 B200 Van 175,000 miles, 1972 Vega (great, if rusty, car), 1972 Celica, 1986.5 Supra

I have confirmed that on my car it is the fog lights that come on after you close the door. Also, the fog light bulb is in the same reflector housing as the main lights so it is hard to tell the difference (took me a couple of tries before I was sure). I checked the diagrams on AllData (always a pleasure...) and it does not appear that the headlights are on the CAN bus. Only other thing I can say is that when my headlamp bulb burned out, the "bulb out" lamp on the dash went on right away. It is an orange lamp near the bottom of the cluster with a picture on it that looks sort of like a light bulb!! Do you have that on? Another question is does the high beam work on that side?

Mike

__________________
1998 C230 330,000 miles (currently dead of second failed EIS, yours will fail too, turning you into the dealer's personal human cash machine)
1988 F150 144,000 miles (leaks all the colors of the rainbow)
Previous stars: 1981 Brava 210,000 miles, 1978 128 150,000 miles, 1977 B200 Van 175,000 miles, 1972 Vega (great, if rusty, car), 1972 Celica, 1986.5 Supra

I can confirm that I don't have fog lights. The high beams on the same side work fine and yes the orange warning lamp in the dash cluster is on indicating a problem. I notived when my wife came home last night the headlight was now on. I did remove the bulb from the back of the headlight cluster and then put it back in but it still did not work when turned on. Strange.

__________________
John


1998 C230 for the wife
1986 Porsche 944 Turbo for me in the summer
1993 Audi 90 for me in the winter

You are telling me that when you turn the headlight knob 2 clicks clockwise and then pull it out, it does not pull out and additional light does not come out of the lamp housings? An your lamp out indicator is on and you don't think that you have a lamp out? When filaments go bad they can have a small crack. They can come and go for a while before being gone all the way. Close inspection with a magnifier will show the fracture in the filament, if you don't trust your dash indicator.

MP

__________________
1998 C230 330,000 miles (currently dead of second failed EIS, yours will fail too, turning you into the dealer's personal human cash machine)
1988 F150 144,000 miles (leaks all the colors of the rainbow)
Previous stars: 1981 Brava 210,000 miles, 1978 128 150,000 miles, 1977 B200 Van 175,000 miles, 1972 Vega (great, if rusty, car), 1972 Celica, 1986.5 Supra

On the C-class, the fogs are integrated into the same housing as the headlights. Don't know if you realize this or not, but you should indeed have foglights, they are the lamps closest to the grill. At least my parents' '97 and '00 C230s both have fogs.

Try replacing the bulb on the problem side with a new one. It may be a faulty connection. If that doesn't work, then maybe you do have a problem with the CAN bus.

Halogen Fog lamps built into the head light housings were standard on the 98 c230's. These are what come on when the courtesy feature is activated.

It's most likely just a burnt out headlight, hence the "light out" warning light on the dash.

EDIT: Try swapping the h7 head light bulbs (passenger - driver, and vice versa), if the same headlight still doesn't work, you have a problem. If the problem migrates with the bulb, it's just a burnt out bulb .

__________________
I love my cars to death but my wallet sure doesn't.

Yes. Swap the bulbs. That should settle it!! And it is possible that you have an odd 98 C230 that was built without fog lights. I have even seen some that apparently were built without turn signals...

__________________
1998 C230 330,000 miles (currently dead of second failed EIS, yours will fail too, turning you into the dealer's personal human cash machine)
1988 F150 144,000 miles (leaks all the colors of the rainbow)
Previous stars: 1981 Brava 210,000 miles, 1978 128 150,000 miles, 1977 B200 Van 175,000 miles, 1972 Vega (great, if rusty, car), 1972 Celica, 1986.5 Supra