W212 highbeams.

[Ivanerrol]

Learn something new every day.

Tonite I went out in the W212 wagon.
Dark road - so went to high beams - no go. Switch not making high beam come up.

High beam flash is working.

Dr. Googled the problem.

The headlight switch has an auto position. The headlights come on automagically when low light conditions are met.
So. If the switch is on the auto position, you can’t select high beam unless certain conditions are met. I guess the automatic computer decides whether or not the car is in a built up area or not.

To get high beam working the headlight switch needs to be turned to “headlights on”.

I wonder how many visits to the stealers have been made to try and get that fault diagnosed.

Lucky there was an accurate result from the MBUK club website. The US sites were predicting dire faults with relays, fuses or the multi switch

[T-Modell]

Well,
what's your point? Exactly the same function as with the old cars. Flashing the high beams works always, high beams only with the lights on. The one function they leave, so old farts like us can accomodate ...
Thomas

[Nabstud]

So “auto” setting controls everything? All other cars I’ve driven, auto setting only turns on low beam, high beam is still controlled by the driver.

[Ivanerrol]

The point being.
You can't control high beam when the car is in auto mode.

No problem with this with my W211. You can go up to high beam in auto.

Can't in the W212.
I see a lot of comments on forums with the same thing. Owners think there is a fault - when it's just misoperation.

[CraigB]

Thanks for sharing this - heard the exact same problem somewhere recently - can't remember what model and if it would have had the Auto thing, but I will remember that now and might be able to help someone else. I don't see myself in anything this late!