on my last long california trip, my laptop ,which was hooked up via 12v to my cigarette adapter, decided to blow up. my glow plug light went off and my front right headlight stopped working.

i replaced all my glow plugs (only 3 were testing bad), and that restored the glow light and i could start it. and after i fixed the glow plugs my headlight suddenly worked again. i thought it might have been because of a ground problem and was happy it worked.

yesterday i installed a new door handle on the passenger side, and now my headlight wont work again. what in the world. i checked the connecting and it not loose. my brights work, but not my main city lights.

I have euro's installed, but would not think that it would change anything. anyone have any ideas what could be wrong. i will check to see if i have voltage comming out of the plug for the light. or could it be my light switch?

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Grey '91 350SDL 214k Dad's car
Beige '81 240D 4 Speed 254k SOLD
Blue '82 300D 225k SOLD
White '95 E300D 46k SOLD
Blue '87 190D 2.5 Turbo 315k SOLD
Brown '80 240D 4 Speed 716k SOLD
Beige '80 300D N/A 119k SOLD
Blue '85 300D Model 186k T-Boned

start by putting a voltmeter across the battery terminals, start it up and see what it does. If the regulator fails to limit voltage, you'll have all kinds of hurt.

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'82 300SD - 361K mi - "Blue"

"Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement."

listen, look, .........and duck.

My headlights were playing jokes on me a while back. I thought one was burned out so I bought a new light. Put it in and it still didn't work. It ended up being the fuse. On my 300TD there are seperate fuses for each headlight. I changed the fuse and it works fine now. The old one looked fine, but putting in a new one seemed to fix the problem. You might try a new fuse.

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i will try the fuses, i have new ones that i purchased, but they all looked fine.

as for the battery, am i supposed to check the voltage at the battery itself? does the regulator actually limit voltage at the battery, or after it somewhere.

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Grey '91 350SDL 214k Dad's car
Beige '81 240D 4 Speed 254k SOLD
Blue '82 300D 225k SOLD
White '95 E300D 46k SOLD
Blue '87 190D 2.5 Turbo 315k SOLD
Brown '80 240D 4 Speed 716k SOLD
Beige '80 300D N/A 119k SOLD
Blue '85 300D Model 186k T-Boned

Just check the voltage at the battery with the engine running. The voltage regulator controls the voltage output from the alternator, which is "before" the battery. It sounds like your voltage may be too high, which could damage things.

Our cars' fuses are NOTORIOUS for looking fine, but having a hairline crack, odd corrosion, loose connection, alien invasion, German gremlins, etc.

Change them out, don't just check 'em. honest.

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The Golden Rule

1984 300SD (bought new, sold it in 1988, bought it back 13 yrs. later)

I have a crack in the wire aout 3 inches from the connection. I havn't fixed it yet but I can bend the wire slightly and turn it on and off on command. Same problem (high beam but no low beam).

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Adam Lumsden
(83) 300D
Vice-President of the MBCA International Stars Section

it was the fuse. it was black on one end and the plastic was melted. it was red, and said it was a 16 amp fuse, but the metal was much thinker than any of my other 16 amp fuses. i put a new one in and the lights work great.

thanks everyone.

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Grey '91 350SDL 214k Dad's car
Beige '81 240D 4 Speed 254k SOLD
Blue '82 300D 225k SOLD
White '95 E300D 46k SOLD
Blue '87 190D 2.5 Turbo 315k SOLD
Brown '80 240D 4 Speed 716k SOLD
Beige '80 300D N/A 119k SOLD
Blue '85 300D Model 186k T-Boned