Stern is quite a respectful guy (however, always long-long-winded when answering simple questions). His points are valid, and if you're looking to be able to actually see at night, then these copy-euro-lights are probably not the best choice.
But, I've been at this old mercedes for a while. I've had alot of cars, and alot of different head lights. Original sealed beams, old Euro lights, new OEM euro lights, and even E-code stuff from Stern. Once upon a time I had a 240D with 500W watts of light available. I've seen alot of cars with bad euro lights installed by foolish owners looking for the euro look. Rusty reflectors, no efforts to align the beams, etc. Some of you might remember this from (gasp!) 9 years ago: http://www.jaimekop.com/240D/lights/ With my experience, I can make the following conclusions: 1. The cibie stuff the stern sells is excellent, and highly recommended... I'd even go as far as saying its better then MB original euro lights. 2. Good, clean, or new MB euro lights that are properly setup work very well. 3. As euro lights age, their usefulness can be reduced to being worse the sealed beams. This is why car have to replace their head lights in Germany to pass the TÜV sometimes. I had a euro W116 with completely worthless original eurolights the looked pretty good on first glance. 4. Old euro lights that are not aligned properly are WORSE than sealed halogen beams that are properly aligned. 5. I've never bought a mercedes that didn't need its head lights aligned somewhat. 6. Maybe people install euro lights in the Mercedes because they like how they look, not how the perform. So, my conclusion about these knock-offs: If you don't care about how they light up the road so much as how they look, then buy em! I'm sure they're not that bad. And they're probably better than the 20 year old euro-lights you'll get off eBay in germany that should have gone to the recycler. For me, my personal choice is original US lights (for the stock look) with Cibie E code H4/H1 lights. Now, let me tell you about Mercedes radios..... Jaime '95 E320 wagon with new US head lights, thanks to me rear-ending someone last year. '82 300D with 7" Cibies and some kinda high output bulbs Stern sold me years ago. '79 300SD with halogen sealed beams properly aligned, and cibie H1 high beams installed by the german original owner. On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 10:24 AM, Gary Hurst <jabbahur...@gmail.com> wrote: > stern says: > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: Consult Daniel Stern Lighting <t...@danielsternlighting.com> > Date: Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 10:21 AM > Subject: Taiwanese lights > To: jabbahur...@gmail.com > > > The DJAuto, Depo, TYC, Genera, and Fifft units (amongst other "brands") > that > are all over the internet are copycats from Taiwan and mainland China. The > low price is attractive, but the quality, performance, and durability are > all substantially inferior to the genuine items. And that's to say nothing > of the newest wave of trash coming in from China under names like Helix and > Sonar (or > no name at all). Projector headlamp conversions, clear-lens conversions, > "angel eye" conversions etc...every bit of it dangerously badly made. > > Back to the "looks just like OE" Taiwanese lights: all of these copycat > lamps start out with physical copies of the lens, and > the results are photometrically pathetic...one might as well make a mould > of > your eyeglasses lenses and expect to be able to cast new working eyeglass > lenses from the mould. Bzzt, not going to happen. The level of > shape precision required to accurately focus the beam can only be achieved > with optical engineering _from scratch_. Copies don't even begin to get in > the ballpark. The beam patterns won't be a total mess; you'll still see > the cutoff and upsweep on low beam, for example, but light distribution > under the cutoff is way, way out of line with what it should be. Usually > the ECE type approval ("E-code") marks are fraudulent/counterfeit, too. > Same story with their DOT lights. > > "Perfect OE fit and performance" is often promised in the ads for the > copycat lamps. This is an out-and-out lie. Take a look at > http://www.capacertified.org/press/CAPALighting3.pdf , which is the report > on a large government-sponsored test of OE vs. TYC vs. Depo versions of > simple, cheap American-car headlamps. TYC and Depo are the largest, most > advanced, least-shitty makers of knockoff lamps; ALL the others are vastly > worse. Epic fail anyhow for the TYC & Depo units > (see page 21 and 30 if you don't have time to read the whole report). > Original European lamps are a good deal more precise than the American > junk...how well do you suppose the copycatters do at copying precise lamps > when they can't even get a sloppy American-market lamp right? > > > > > -- > save 5% on our already low, low prices. use coupon code DAVE at checkout. > www. BuyEUROparts.com > _______________________________________ > http://www.okiebenz.com > For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com > To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ > > To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: > http://okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com > _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
