Ok, I am about to take the car in for a 'B' service and want to get some things straight first.

At the last 'A' service, I had them enable the built in fog lights in the headlights. Problem is, there is no indication that they are on (other than extra light of course).

Question 1: Is there supposed to be an indicator light?

I am very interested in installing some "driving" lights (not fog lights). I want a high intensity pencil beam for traversing the long straight Texas roads at night. Ideally, these lights would only come on with the highbeams.

Question 2: The second portion of the aux lighting, is it only active while low beams are on, as in second set of fog/flood lights?

Question 3: When the dealer enabled the built in fog lights, was the secondary harness also enabled?

Question 4: If and when the fog light indicator is enabled, do both sets of lights use the same indicator

Can you tell I am trying to get everything enabled CORRECTLY this time? From what I have heard, there should be a light in the instument cluster to show when the fog lights are on.

THANKS A TEXAS TON!!!!

The indicator light can be enabled in all models except for '98. If you have a '99 or later this can be enabled. I think G-Benz had his running lights activated which also activated the harness.

Kuan

Sorry, 2000 model. I just can't believe that they enabled the lights, but not the indicator. I was pissed, especially after paying $38. Not to start another ***** session about shop time, but if I had been aware of this "disabled" feature at the time of purchase, they would have enabled it at no cost at all, I'm sure. Probably thrown in the bulbs for me as well.

I have a 99 and the dealership did it free of charge. I asked them to enable both the harness and the indicator light, but only the harness worked.

When I took it in for service sometime later, I noted the situation, and when I got it back, they had said that there was no indicator light on the 99 model either. Oh well.

They should not have charged you in the first place, and they should have let you know about the fact that they are enabled seperately (if you have an indicator light). I have heard that the green glow from the indicator light is annoying for many owners, and that is why MB chose to make them enable separately...

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Well, I took it to the dealer. The service advisor didn't know what I was talking about, so she got the shop foreman. He said that the Federal government doesn't let them enable those lights and that to do it, you have to switch country codes. Imagine his expression when the advisor pulled my history up on the screen to show that THEY had enabled the lights.

I did do a post that had the list of states where the foglights officially are illegal. How much of a hassle you'd get I guess would vary. Most dealers would probably just warn you and activate anyways. Maybe you can find this post. If not I believe I have the hard copy somewhere.
I agree the green light is kind of annoying anyways.
Gilly
ps I'd hate to call anyone a LIAR, so lets just say I've activated dozens of foglights and not once did it involve changing a country setting in anything.

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A few weeks ago I installed the H-3 bulbs for the fog lights and was surprised to find they worked without having the dealer activate them. Some vehicles must have been activated at the factory inadvertently. I found it very difficult to install the bulbs with the light assemblies mounted to the vehicle, so I removed them as suggested by Gilly. Very easy to do, and you can see to route the connection wire away from the hot socket. If I had been able to install the bulbs with the light units still installed in the vehicle, I'm sure the connector wire would have been in contact with the very hot surface of the bulb, since I just couldn't see in there, even using a mirror ( I think this has caused problems for some others ).

At the same time I corrected the misadjusted vertical aim of the lights, that the dealer didn't do, even though I told them the lights were aimed into the trees and oncoming cars were flashing their lights at me. I'm embarrassed to admit I put up with that for three years thinking the dealer had adjusted them to spec.( And it's so easy with the built-in level when parked on a level surface ).

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Tom H.

Tom:
Yep, removing the whole lamp is the way to go, don't even need to diconnect the headlamp harness if you don't want to. Seems that the hardest part to learn was how to get the filler panel below the headlamps on and off. It seems like it's complex, because when you swing the filler to one side after unclipping it, you see that black clip on the fender. You just need to realize that the clip just stays in place, don't touch it, it doesn't affect the removal of the filler panel at all.
I'm not sure why your lamps were programed to work. When doing the PDI maybe someone thought they'd do themselves or the owner a favor and get it ready. Doesn't really help if there is nobody who knows or remembers that it's done. My thinking is that it was done by a dealer at a later date, not the factory. What year is it? If it's not a 98, does the green light in the cluster light up as well? Here's another tip for you, if it isn't a 98 and the green light is now coming on with the foglights, it should have also been coming on prior to the bulb installation with the key on/engine off (bulb check function), that may have tipped you off that it was ready to work, because the cluster needs to be programmed for that function to work, and when it is, that light will be coming on key on/engine off. Also the top half of the aux light switch will be turning the green light on and off by pressing it, even with no foglight bulbs in the headlight unit, the AAM doesn't care if the bulbs are there or not.
If it's not a 98, then of course it would have been difficult to tell that the AAM was programmed for the foglights to work, would have needed to test with a testlight or VOM.
Also, as long as I'm on the subject, the reason that these aren't programmed from the factory to work is because of the different state laws regarding the height of fog or driving lights. At the height they are on ML's, they are legal in roughly half of the US. On US models they just treat them all the same and just program all of them "off", I believe in Canada they have always been installed and programmed "on". Now on the ML's with the foglights installed in the front bumpers, like the ML55 and the Sport models, they are legal in all 50 because they are so much lower, and of course all of these work from the factory.
Gilly

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Gilly: My ML-320 is a 1998 model that I bought new. Thanks for all the good info you are contributing to this forum.

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Tom H.