w210 xenon fit

[brightem]

Will xenon lights from a 1997 w210 fit a 1996 w210? I'm pretty sure they would, but I want to be certain.

Thanks!!!

[davestlouis]

They may not be a simple plug-n-play though. You can do a direct swap on W220's but I'm not sure about 210's.

[raymond~]

in theory, yes. 96-99 W210 are the years which use same physical specs on
the headlight. Halogens interchange between these years w/o modification.
then the next group of years is 00-02 w210 and which are interchangeable
(aka post face lift) between them. one way to be sure is to get part numbers
for headlights for 1996 and same for 1997.

[davestlouis]

I'm told that some cars' electronic brains won't recognize the non-halogen lamps and sometimes will cause the zenons to flash with a strobe-like effect because they draw so many amps that the car's brain tries to shut them down repeatedly.

[raymond~]

LOL....no, but that's a novel explanation. the HID system runs at a lower power
draw than halogen. whereas halogen is about 55 watts, HID is 35 watts. the
system simply sees the lower power consumption as bulb malfunction, as if the
bulb is out. since the key component is the ballast, given the variations in
manufacturing some ballasts are viewed by the on board light circuitry as normal
where other ballasts trigger the malfunction code. when the setting is toggled
to "HID PRESENT" et al, the circuitry looks for a lighting device load which is
lower....or views the higher resistance as the readjusted degree of "normal".
result is no triggering of the infamous 'bulb malfunction' error msg.

note that I installed E55 bixenon into my 99 E320 and used Hella gen3 ballasts.
it does *not* trigger the error msg, though about 4-5x year, it does. I swap
out the ballasts for another brand and the flickering and error msg lights up.
my car still is set for halogen lighting system