I took a look at the bulbs for both the turn signal and brake lamp and they appear to be standard push and turn type bulbs. Those with a W164 take the time to inspect the setup MB has done with the rear lamp assembly. Hardly any wires! Very easy access. Nice job.
The manual list the following 12volt bulb types:
brake-P21W
turn-PY21W
Any recommendations and what type LED I could use? Drew this is your department so maybe you can help. Thanks
__________________ Jack - MS Gulf Coast Resident and Katrina Survivor
RE: W164 brake & turn signal lamp replacement w/LED
Hi,
Quote:
AutoSaurus - 7/5/2005 11:21 PM
photos of the bulbs used for the rear turn signal.
I don't believe changing out the bulbs is going to be that easy b/c it appears to be a special bulb and not a standard type bulb.
I'm sorry, but that's a bug-standard W21 amber bulb - LED replacements are available for those everywhere.
You have to fit it with a resistance, though, otherwise your blink frequency will increase by a lot (the relay senses the LED bulb as a burnt-out conventional one).
Same if you replace the brake light bulbs with LED's, your cruise control will not work without a resistance.
Resistances (or is it resistors - well, let's call them load equalizers) are available from the same people who sell the LED bulbs.
I had good experiences with Jerry from .com, but this is some 2 years back.
Cheers,
Birger
__________________
2007 Lexus RX400h, Navajo Beige, Ivory Leather, Birds-Eye Maple
RE: W164 brake & turn signal lamp replacement w/LED
Quote:
AutoSaurus - 7/4/2005 2:21 PM
photos of the bulbs used for the rear turn signal.
I don't believe changing out the bulbs is going to be that easy b/c it appears to be a special bulb and not a standard type bulb.
As Birger said, it is a normal bulb and therefore there shouldn't be a problem swapping them. MB has now moved towards the standard lighting configuration throughout their lineup, and that is actually very similar to how you replace the bulbs on the MB cars (and in fact some BMWs). It was only the W163 ML that was the oddity, as usual, requiring the whole lamp assembly to be removed to get to the bulbs.
The brake lamp bulbs, being standard 1156 single filament bulbs, should be easy enough to replace. However, you will have to file down one of the "nibs" on the signal lamp bulb as it has offset nibs to hold the bulb in place, sort of like a "Y", probably why they call it a PYW21.
Given that the new ML has a bulb-out warning system, I have to say that I have mixed feelings about replacing the brake lamp bulbs with LEDs + load equalisers. I tried doing this in a W203 C-Class and found that the best load equaliser was actually a regular incandescent bulb tapped off of the factory harness. In heavy stop-go traffic, the load equaliser could get extremely hot and indeed I manage to totally burn one out! You shouldn't have this problem with the signals since they only come on intermittently and for short durations.
__________________
<b><u>BenzWorld.org Senior Forum Host & Lighting guru</u></b>
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