Thanks focussed and link appreciated. I'll search youtube for other things I want to find out - I've not really used it.

Yes they were good Smileyman, they work well on my old MB too...being a cheap skate i cut down el cheapo normal wiper blades to fit, MB want silly money for those short headlight blades.

Volvo fitted headlight washer wipers to their FL10/12 lorries of the time, i had them for a long time under car transporter bodies and always nded up disconnecting the headlight washer pump, you could empty the 2 gallon odd washer bottle in one salty winter days/nights work because every time you washed the screen the headlights got blasted too if they were turned on...in those days companies didn't believe in paying for washer anti freeze, one can only assume they thought we had some form of personal ESP..:-)

Not quite sure what Scot's posh :-) lights are all about, i've just got over refitting sealed beam units to replace the old 45/50w bulbs, now they've brought these new fangled halogen bulbs so the sealed beams are now old hat and its back to bulbs....how many have a clue what i'm on about there, you have to be a certain age..

Edited by gordonbennet on 19/09/2015 at 22:45

the self levelling must be related to Xenon's as they must adjust automatically and not have the manual adjustment thingy

(does anyone ever use these devices? - the UK Government fundged acceptance of EU dictak as part of a deal to discontinue dim-dip headlights, another example of EU botch up of a perfectly good safety system that has now, with the passage of time, brought us to having fairy lights like a fairground attraction)

active bending lights - probably a copy of the Citroen DS system where the lights bend to follow the direction of the front wheels

Edited by Smileyman on 20/09/2015 at 00:38

Wish someone would make newer cars without so many electrical things to go wrong.

They do (Dacia) and they have done for years, but people have been bamboozled by the hype, ably aided and abetted by the general motoring press (our leader excepted, his views/reviews are nothing like the typical sales type mags output) into believing their lives are not complete without all the three letter acronyms known to man as driving aids, or they'll drive their car straight into the ditch should there be no working ESP (extra sensory prevention i would have thought would do)...guaranteed if someone has fitted new tyres to the front the fiend..:)

Example we had a seriously good very low mileage MB E Class Diesel saloon, one of the last made of the venerably W124 class and in truly superb condition, it was a cloth seated alloy wheeled 4 speed automatic with 4 x electric windows plus electric sunroof, but importantly lacked climate (aircon) and leather and had no traction control of any sort save ABS...simple as can be and a lovely drive...probably the most simple reliable Benz you could buy of the last 30 years.

We mistakenly decided to sell it and my advert was linked to one of the MB forums where the car was dismissed (not by W124 specialist seller from the sotuh coast who has written much of HJ's used good/bad points above) as ''poverty spec'', can you imagine what they'd have said had it been on steelies with trims?...this is how the modern car buying public are, they want 20 or 200 times the electronics of even 15 years ago and seem surprised that they don't go long past the warranty period before giving trouble.

You try and sell a modern vehicle used that isn't top of the range, pooh pooed by huge swathes of the buying public whom seem convinced a 70k 4 year old DSG box is the bare minimum spec.

There's many reasons i'm a fan of and keep my 90's designs as well as i can for as long a life as possible, relative simplicity is just one of them.

On the subject of bendy lights, modern lights that go round corners are not mechanically linked like Citroens venerable DS of 60's vintage, they are seriously complicated on modern cars...we were told to pay special care to the headlights (and front end generally) of the first Cit C4 which had optional bendy lights, supposed to be getting on for 4 figures for a single headlight unit.