Quote:
Originally Posted by Michelle
Hello, I'm new to this forum and to Mercedes cars. I recently bought an '88 300E. It has holes in the headlights and bezels (doors?). I'm looking into getting euro lights. My car has headlight wipers. These euros I want don't have wiper stoppers on them. Do I need them, or should I say, can I make some for these? What about the motors for the wipers? Are they part of the headlight or do they sit underneath?
TIA for your help!
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Hi Michelle, welcome to a great forum for Mercedes including your model, the W124, lots of good information to be had on this site, for your car in the tech help section, and the diesel discussion for this model.
First of all, the conversion to Euro lights is probably the best modification you could make to this car, in my opinion. They look beautiful compared to the US headlights, and better than this, they throw a MUCH better light pattern and have a better cutoff than the U.S. Dept. of Transportation mandated headlights. Buying and installing the euro lights, while not cheap, is an investment in safety and looks you'll never regret having made.
Being in Michigan, only you can decide whether you'd like to (1) retain the US style headlight wipers (2) remove them for a sleeker and smoother look, and lose the wiping capability (how much road slush gets on them in winter up there?) or (3) install euro style, sleeker wiper blades for the headlights which work just like the US ones but look much nicer when "parked", and would require probably new valances (the thin metal strip under the headlights where the headlight wipers came out from) that would have to be painted.
The euro light set up I think would cost, with shipping and tax, for a first class Bosch original equipment set of Euro lights and corner blinkers, about $500-$600 a set new, and the Euro wiper set up perhaps $250-$300 extra I would think. If you don't need the Euro wiper capability, you could probably go without the euro light wiper set up to save money, and remove the US wipers, or as was said, keep them. If you removed the US style headlight wipers, you could either reapaint the valances or plug up the holes where the US wipers for the lights were, and paint over the plugs or not.
To answer your question, the motors for the headlight wipers are separate from the headlights themselves.
Once the euro lights are installed, they should be properly aimed, and properly aimed that is all you would need normally. The complete euro setup as delivered in Germany (but not provided specifically if you purchase a euro light setup here in the USA) also includes a dashboard thumbwheel adjuster so you could adjust the headlight beams from the dashboard, but unless you carry lots of passengers or big loads in the trunk frequently, you could just aim the lights with the car unladen and be set for most driving situations.
I am not an expert on your model, so others here could correct me if I am wrong on some points.
A word about your car: This particular model is considered basically bombproof, it is believed by many people to be the LAST of the modern E class Mercedes cars built with a "cost no object" price point, so the durability, build quality, legendary longevity, comfort and safety are uncompromised, a true gem of a car and well worth keeping to Star Trek mileages.
Your profile shows you as a person who builds Fords in Michigan, and this Mercedes has little in common in terms of assembly than Fords then and now, and so, we would wonder, what made you turn to a Mercedes? Was it their reputation, prestige, safety, quality, longevity, your possible dislike of American cars or what
Also, we don't get many women here, so you are warmly welcomed here for your interest asw a member of the fair sex!
You might also visit
www.benzworld.org and check out the threads running over there in the W124 and W126 sections, they have extended discussions this week on Euro lights for Mercedes cars some like yours, for further discussion and illumination (no pun intended) of this topic
Also, your car presumably was furnished with American-mandated headlight wipers that were heated, they were rather ugly and may have had heated reservoirs for wiping the headlights when activated by the windshield wiper stalk on the steering column.
When you get your Euro lights, (Bosch are the best ones to get, with H4 bulbs, as in the euro cars originally) the box they came in might say "for off road use only" because technically they were illegal to have on U.S. cars, even though they were so much better than the U.S. units. I wouldn't worry about that though
Again, welcome, I hope this helped, and feel free to amplify on your questions if you don't get the answer answered to your satisfaction.
You may well actually have a car much more worthy of being cherished than yoiu realize.
Remember, you are urged to post pictures of your car in the gallery to share with the membership here, also.