Innovation is something which is highly pronounced in automotive industry. Every new technology brings more comfort, safety, style and luxury for the user. Lighting system is one that feature that is upgraded and differentiated with each upcoming model of a brand and Mercedes Benz is committed to pioneer the industry by producing high-end technology cars without compromising on its brand’s value.
Halogen lights has been a standard for the auto industry for so many years because they were cheap to manufacture and simple to replace but LED lights are now outshining them because of their smaller size as well as brighter white light. With the use of LED lights all auto manufacturers including Mercedes Benz have been able to have more design freedom with headlights and other lights of the vehicle.
What are parking lamps in Mercedes Benz?
Parking lamps or parking lights are small, powered sidelights that are traditionally found either within or separate to headlight assembly. Parking lights also known as LED daytime running lights DRLs are designed to highlight the extremities of the car at dawn, dusk or in bad weather as well as when it isn’t dark enough to necessitate use of the headlights. These lights are not intended to illuminate the road ahead, but make your car more visible in failing light to help other drivers on the road.
Mercedes Benz firstly introduced this parking lamps or DRLs feature into lower part of the bumper in its C-class W204 S204 and C204, w205 s205 c205 a205 Facelift coupe and E-class W212 S212 A207 C207 and S-class W221 Facelift cars but later on, it redesigned these lights within headlight assembly. Since then, these lights are a standard in almost all newer post 2010 models of Mercedes Benz.
How my parking lamps should ideally work?
Parking lamps are functioned to be turned ON automatically with the vehicle’s engine doesn’t matter if your car is moving or static. Many newer cars have light sensors which will automatically turn the sidelights on, followed by the dipped beam headlights as the ambient outdoor light progressively dims. Therefore it is necessary that you always keep a check on your sidelights or parking lights that they are illuminated on the road.
Sometimes, there could be some problems which may cause these parking lights to stop working. And when it happens, you would normally receive a message on information cluster indicating a problem with your parking lights. The message will say: Right left parking lamp warning which means there has been some fault in any of the component in parking light system.
Diagnosis of Fault
In most of the cases, when you receive this message it is the LED control module known as LED Ballast as well, has either completed its life or damaged due to moisture, loose wiring due to accident or any other reason. This LED module and all problem related to it are particular for Mercedes Benz cars C - class models Pre-Facelift (before facelift model from 2014 to 2018). It is recommended that you check LED control module in the first place. However, in addition to this category of Mercedes Benz cars, this module is fitted only on LED High Performance headlamps and not a suitable fit for Intelligent Light System (ILS) LED headlamps.
There may be different symptoms that may be noticed during message indication:
- DRL lights / parking lamps not turn on, left or right and warning message displayed
- LED Daytime Running Light lamps/ dipped beams are flickering
- DRL Lights turn on/off and random times
- Left Right Daytime Driving Lamp doesn't work at all.
To diagnose if the problem is with LED control module, you need to change the sides of lights to ascertain if the problem is with LED bulbs or its control module. If it is LED bulb then changing side will illuminate the light on the other side but if it does not illuminate, it means the LED control module has gone faulty and needs replacement.
To inspect the Led module for possible failure, first check it for any moisture or water damage by shaking it because usually when water sits in it makes sound upon shaking. Or if there are clear signs of moisture then simply just replace it.
But if there are no signs of water damage, check for the fuses because sometimes the moisture may not be visible enough and cause wirings to fuse.
How should I fix this error?
A control unit is factory fitted LED module component on Mercedes Benz C-class W205 S205 A205 and C205 Pre-Facelift cars with LED high performance headlamps. This is a direct replacement to the faulty module. All you need to do is just pull off the faulty module and put the new one to make your car perfect again. You can either attempt this replacement yourself or may contact a certified technician such as xenons4u. you can also find this component as well as other aftermarket replacement or genuine parts here.
Once the replacement is done, the error should fade away from the cluster without requiring any coding.
