I'm having the same problem here,,just went out to the garage to figure out how to remove the dome cover from my 04 w211, but seems like the ceiling cover is be needed to be removed in order to take the front and rear domes off?? and I've also tried to pry out the bottom courtesy lights cover with a flat head screwdriver, but did not work as well lol

 

HELP!!!!
has anyone gone through this process before???

 

I want to do this mod. too...i already have a place to buy the bulbs i need

 

here is another thread that discussed about this problem. But yet I still have not tried uncliping the cover above the rear-view mirror from the dome yet haha

 

search for thread: removing dome cover

 

Well, according to WIS, you need to remove the rain/light sensor, then remove the rear view mirror, and that will allow you to pull down the front dome lamp which is called the overhead control panel. WIS says that the rear dome light you remove by using a wedge.

 

I successfully replaced all my interior lights with LED. Seems that the W211rear Dome manual lights cannot be changed to LED. The Front Dome/Front Manual/Rear Dome are fine with LED. Also I am having problems with the foot lights. It seems that when i open the door it has a 3 - 4 second delay for the lights to come up. Also when im driving the Foot lights would flash 4 times with about 5 second delay per flash then shut off completely. I might ultimately just get load resistors to fix this issue. The door lights and mirrior under lights works fine with LEDs. I think LED interior looks 10x better then stock. I am going to find a solution for the License plate and trunk lights. The license plate and trunk lights do not work with LED and probably will require load resistors. I purchased some regular Super White Xenon halogen 6418 bulbs and will take pictures once everything is completed.

 

keep us posted

 

MrKlumZ,
How about some pics of your handy-work?

 

Removing Rear Dome Light Cover- ALL LED Conversion

I replaced every interior and exterior bulb in my E500 to LED. (*you will need 2 Wedge xenon blue bulbs and 2 LED wedge bulbs*)

To take off the back dome light cover and replace the bulbs :

1. I used a Golf Divot tool and slid it between the dome case and the roof on each diagonal corner. There are 4 clips i believe that hold the case on. Just pop it off the ceiling, be careful u dont want to break a clip.

2. The case should be hanging by a wide cord from the roof, unplug the fragile cord from the case.

3. The rear reading lights will not accept LEDs but the main dome light will. For the reading lights I just used blue wedge bulbs from an auto supply store and it looks great.

Doing all LED's in a w211 for some reason glitches quite a bit. The LEDs I put in the courtesy lights under the door's stays on while driving and the floor lights will turn on for 5 seconds when somebody opens the door, then turns off for another 5 seconds and turns back on. Has anyone else ran into this issue?

 

Ditto - I replaced all the dome, footwell, doors, and trunk lights with white LED's except the rear map lights have to be regular bulbs. I also have a slight delay in the lights coming on after a door opens, but its short - 1 second or so. (Note that using LED's in the footwells makes them brighter when they're on for ambiance light - e.g., when your lights are on, and you're driving.)

I'm using "CANBUS" LED's, and they work for everything - even the footwells. They're usually a bit pricier, but they have circuitry to take care of the computer shutting off the circuit thinking the lower power draw of LED's is a blown bulb. They're available from autolumination.com, but I got mine from Ebay because they're cheaper YMMV.

(As for the "glow" from the dome while driving - those can't be changed out because they're LED's soldered onto circuit boards.)

 

When I open my doors the footwell lights come on instantly, then shut off for about 4 seconds then turn back on again. Also the lights under the two front doors stay on all the time while driving. do you have these issues?

 

In my W211 the footwell lights stay on very dim to allow you to see the floor as you drive, therefore may cause some problems with LEDS. I installed illuminated door sills in mine by running a cable up to the footwell lights, therefore my illuminated sills stay on very dimly when all the doors are closed.

Nice feature however it probably causes problems with LED installations

 

Can you please tell me how you are able to have the headlights on without the parking lights functioning? Sorry if this is common knowledge, but I swear sometimes I want to know something so bad that i dont notice the answer OR its not stated in owners manual :/ btw nice LED upgrade.

 

My LED vanity lights turned how great, just trying to fix the door and footwell LEDS. Those are either very dim or never turn on.

 

How did you replace the Lights Under Rear View Mirror MAP Lights? I have no idea how to get them out lol
replaced everything with LED no flickering no delay all works fine unless of course the ambient when driving, actually I like it is not to much but the rear view mirror still makes me think how to change those map light bulbs?

 

I replaced the door puddle lights and the foot well lighting with LEDs and it looks fantastic. So much classier. The problem that I have is that the foot well lighting and the door puddle lights stay on very dimly, where as the stock festoon halogen bulbs shut off completely.

Is there a way around this or it is what it is? I am undecided if I want to have all 8 lights dimly lit when at night. It doesn't look bad but at the same time I kind of like when the car is dark rather than faint light everywhere...

Note that they dim coming on/turning off perfectly fine just as the stock bulbs did.

Thanks,
-Nigel

 

That could cause a parasitic draw that may end up pulling the battery down after just a couple of days.

It may be worth going with canbus LEDs. See post 13 farther up. His turn all the way off.

 

All the problems come from the in-correct resistance of LED bulb. A 100 ohm resistor should be used.

 

In theory that would work, but the heat from the resistor in very confined spaces is a concern.

Good canbus LEDs with heat sinks are the way this should really go.

We already have a member posting no problems with canbus bulbs being used with no issues versus the LEDs NSG used and the LEDs are staying on which is not a good thing.

 

So I was playing around with stuff today along with the backup camera and all the other things I seem to be doing to the car.

I thought something was ruined because none of the damn door lights were coming on at all. Inside foot well lighting was fine but the bottom of the doors, nothing! I was freaking out until I realized that I pushed the top console button...doy! They work!.

Anyways as I was doing all that I had removed the lenses of the foot well lighting so that they were all kind of hanging down on the floor, compared to up in the plastic area. I noted that when they had the stock halogen bulbs if I turned on the lights, these stayed on... I didn't notice it because, when they are clicked into place they are quite dim, it wasn't until I could physically see them dangling that I realized they were on. Messing with the ambient light setting 0-5 only affected the over head led light. It did not affect the foot well lighting at all. Which brings me to the foot well LEDs, prior to this test I thought there was a problem that the LEDs were ON, but in fact this appears to be normal behavior since the stock halogen bulbs do the same thing. Note that the LEDs dim/fade in and out when you open the doors just as the stock do. And only turn "on" when the headlights are turned on. If you shut the doors they shut off.

I am going to try some canbus leds from superbright leds even though they are not rated as high (lumens) as the ones I have from ijdmtoy but it's a test non the less. I really just don't want them to be on when you shut the doors. It looks so odd from inside seeing leaking light from the doors, but when you open the doors my goodness does it look pretty compared to the ugly yellow festoon bulbs.

Anyone have recommendations on canbus leds that they have used?

My problem is that when mixing brands with LEDs everything might not match color wise which would be super annoying to me. The door lights looking different from the interior leds...etc. Very petty but the ocd in my would annoy me every time I looked at it.

These are what I currently have and they are such a nice color.
9-SMD-5730 6411 6418 C5W LED Bulbs | Car Interior Lights, Dome Lights

-Nigel

 

Mercedes W211 Saloon 21pcs Premium LED SMD Bulbs Kit Interior White Error Free | eBay
Bought these and never had problems all Works as it should excactly like regular bulbs, so yes it matters what you put in
If you need custom contact him, and he is really great 1 started flickering 7 months after he send me 2 new bulbs no quistions asked, top service, top poduct.

Not advertising bumb me for it or let me know I remove it Again but for helping out and stop wasting Money and precious time read what you get.

 

I tend to avoid leds from ebay at all costs but since you have had success then I am ordering them. Looks like I will have to email him for a custom kit because I noticed that the trunk area he is including 3 bulbs when I only have two (is that normal or should I have three, I just two, one on each side).

And just to confirm 100% you do not have any light leakage from the inside door lights when the doors are closed no light is on.


EDIT:

I ordered from the above link. I ordered 5000k pure white. I was thinking about doing 6000k since it has a slight blue tint to it but believe since it's light gray on the inside of the car pure white will be better. Where as if it was a dark color or black interior 6000k would definitely be the way to go.
Should be about 2 weeks before I get them so I will post back up.
I was half tempted to get the festoon bulbs from superbrightleds but their prices are sky rocketing for some reason. Just to get 12 festoon bulbs would have been $70+ shipping. Hopefully the above are great. They were $35 + 2 shipping.

Thanks again!

-Nigel

 

Roger that!

I will report as soon as I get them. Every light/bulb is out of the interior of the car as we speak so as soon as I get the kit I will take pictures and install them to see what is what. Currently the inside of the car looks like someone went nuts and stripped it like it was in a junk yard..lol I've got the rear seats in the living room of the house and my wife is like why are these here and not in the car...? lol

-Nigel

 

I will update hopefully tomorrow. But the LEDs are showing that they should be delivered tomorrow. I got the 5k ones so it should be pure white light. It will be nice if everything works I can start putting back the interior as right now it looks pitiful with it being stripped out, no overhead anything, no lights, no back seats...lol

-Nigel

 

Got the leds today. Seem nice. I tested them and they all work fine.

They match perfectly with the under mirror leds on the interior.

Everything came packaged nicely and labeled. This kit actually had a few extra leds but that's ok.
I emailed the seller only because there seems to be two sizes. He sent me two of the larger leds for the trunk when I believe they should be used for the doors because they fit perfectly in the doors. The smaller ones I have to bend the tabs on the doors more in order for them to fit.

There is zero light leakage. When the car is on there is no light coming from the doors!

w00t w00t!

Looks really good. I will take a picture of it when it gets dark.

Crappy picture because I feel asleep early yesterday. I will take more pictures, also showing the yellow crappy light compared to the white light on the door puddle lights. I will try and get a picture of the interior but that is not showing wel for some reason.

Thanks,
-Nigel

 

Ok well got the rest of the two leds today from the seller posted above in my link. They have fantastic customer service btw... so I will recommend them.

I was short two of the larger 39mm leds that fit in the doors. I will state that there is zero light bleeding from the door puddle leds when the car is on/headlights on. When you shut the door the leds turn off as they should and not stay dimly lit like the previous non canbus leds I had.

With my 2009 the following were done.

Overhead center console for driver/passenger side were two 194 type leds. Be forewarned that this is a PITA to do. Note that it's not the removal of the overhead console OR the removal of the mirror, BUT, attaching the mirror back once you get everything out. It's a complete PITA pushing the mirror into the socket and getting the spring connector points depressed to click and lock the mirror in. I honestly though I was going to break the mirror in half by pushing it into it's place. Had MB used their heads they would have designed it so that you either attach the mirror first then attach the upper console OR leave a small opening with the console attached that you could fit a small flat head screw driver to depress one pin on the spring of the mirror to make it click in place. They choose to not do any of that and made something as simple as putting a mirror back in a freaking debacle. I'm still pissed at it thinking about how much of a pita it was. The actual removal of the overhead console took 10 minutes. Changing the LEDs took 30 seconds. Attaching the mirror back took me 45+ minutes for fear of something snapping.

The rear overhead console is much much easier to remove. Grab it by the front corner with a plastic pry tool and you should unclick on of them.. then there are 3 more but you should be able to pull it straight down. 5 minute job which includes putting in the LEDS and testing. *NOTE: You NEED the front overhead console plugged in, if it's not plugged in you will not get anything working in the rear. I didn't know this until I was scratching my head..lol

The door puddle lights are easy, you should be able to take off the plastic clear cover with anything that fits in the opening and simply prying down gently. Pulling the bulb out was easy, putting in the bulb can be tricky. If you have small fingers it's easy, if you have large sausage finger it will be more difficult.

The foot well lighting is super simple. Same as above but you can unplug the module if you want to change the bulbs/leds.

Vanity mirrors use the same module as above but mine were not removable, the ribbon cable is soldered onto the clear lighting module.

Trunk is the same as the foot well lighting, super easy to remove/unplug.


Things I have observed. With the normal incandescent bulbs in the foot well they would light up bright if one opened the door, then fad to s not as bright status then shut off.
*The leds mimic this exactly.

With incandescent bulbs with the headlights on, if you opened the door the foot well lighting is bright, then dims once the door is shut and stays dimly lit abet EXTREMELY dim, to the point that I didn't even know they were on at night short of putting my hand directly under the light and faintly seeing light.

*The leds mimic this exactly with the exception that they are brighter in the dim mode at night. You WILL see the light no problem. It is not distractingly bright but you can definitely see there is light in the foot wells both front/back. Some might like this while others might think it's too bright. I will take pictures this weekend to show how it looks. If you are used to not seeing any light then this will be different. If you complained about not ever seeing light then you will probably like this. If you love the cabin to be as dark as possible, you will not like this.

TLDR: 2009 E350 LED total:
Front Overhead Console - Two 194 style LEDs
Rear Overhead Console - Four 194 style LEDs
Glove Box - One 36-39mm Feston style LED
Overhead Sunvisor Mirror lights (drive/passenger) Two 36-39mm Feston style LEDs
Foot well lighting Front/Rear - Four 36-39mm Feston style LEDs
Front/Rear door puddle lights - Four 39mm Feston style LEDs
Rear trunk - Two 36-39mm Feston LEDs
Total=19 LEDS

Hope that helps people in the future and pics should be up this weekend. Interior looks way sharper with the pure white leds. Loving the door puddle lights as it looks very classy high end/modern compared to the yellow lights.

-Nigel

 

Will buy these today. Hopefully they work.

 

I have zero issues with mine so far. I actually had to turn the foot well light a tad because after some time in the dark I was annoyed by the bright light. It's better now. But all other LEDs are great. The door puddle lights are awesome, pure clean bright while light, so when you open the door it looks extremely nice.

Interior leds match the mirror leds.

-Nigel