S212 2011 Zenon Adaptive Main Beam Assist Inoperable

[Craiglxviii]

got you. i have developed a dislike for just about everything thats controlled by silicon and or little black,silver boxes. HOW complicated does a set of HEADLIGHTS need to be?? i subscribing to classic car, pre 1980. hope that rules out that as an issue...... i dont want to have had to go to school with hawkins to have a chance of motoring enjoyment sans electronics

As simple as the designers can make it usually. You’d be surprised at how simple <most> car electronics are.

Pre 1980 saw 7” sealed beam reflectors as bog standard on about 800lm. Compare that to H7 halogen on around 1100lm (and now 1500) and most HiD systems when introduced on around 2800lm (and now 3500lm). Which would you rather drive round at night with? Car headlamp performance took a dramatic step forwards in 1983-4 when regulations limiting lamps to a combination of 5.75” and 7” sealed beam units were relaxed.

Then we get onto bendy beams. Good enough for Citroen and many US cars of the 50s onwards mechanically (as were parking sensors: “whiskers”) but make them electronic (work better, cost less, more repeatable performance) and people moan. Why?

The thing about cars, and indeed any complex collection of systems is just that. They are systems. That is, they must necessarily interact within themselves and with each other. More powerful engines require bigger brakes, requires more responsive suspension, requires more body stiffening, adds more weight needing a more powerful engine... etc. So a performance increase in one area will typically be because of a changed requirement somewhere else. It’s hideously complex to map out but compare:

Crash performance;
Accident avoidance performance;
Passenger cabin volume;
Luggage space volume;
Fuel efficiency;
Ride and handling;
Emissions;
Inflation- adjusted sticker price

for any given model/ spec/ grade combination over the last 30 years and the general trend of everything except the sale price is linearly upwards. Well not quite linear, they’re each a series of small steps as tech is introduced.

Where lighting is concerned, globally, very roughly 50% of collisions occur at night while only 25% of traffic volume occurs at night. This suggests that driving in the dark gives double the probability of a collision than in the daytime. Which in turn suggests that vehicle lighting performance improvements offer a high Pareto of reducing collisions...

 

[ajlsl600]

craig. get you, sort of , but it seems that i have been misleading myself ,i always thought simpler was better, usually cheaper to make,maintain and less likely to go wrong ,and with our car tech of today that hardly seems to be whats happening. all the electrical electronic dramas that appear here would seem to confirm that

 

[Craiglxviii]

craig. get you, sort of , but it seems that i have been misleading myself ,i always thought simpler was better, usually cheaper to make,maintain and less likely to go wrong ,and with our car tech of today that hardly seems to be whats happening. all the electrical electronic dramas that appear here would seem to confirm that

Again it depends what you mean by “simpler” and “cheaper”.

Simpler: fewer individual parts? Fewer assemblies? Fewer moving parts? Sealed unit? Modular?

Cheaper: cheaper in material? Less build time required? Cheaper replacement parts? Over a year, over projected lifetime?

It’s nowhere near as simplistic as it sounds and can be counter intuitive. Take a halogen lamp. Needs replacing every 2.5 years typically. Performance isn’t top line. Fixed system so no value increase possible (bendy beam etc). Throw that against an LED lamp at eight times the cost. It will last 10-12 years but will then need replacing. But that LED lamp allows significantly improved crash performance as it ties into the seatbelt pre- safe system...

We are where we are due to a genuinely unending drive to improve performance, efficiency, safety, reliability and quality of overall product as delivered to the end user. All of the points above have been studied literally to death to wring every last penny of cost and fraction of performance out of them (I mean, really). The industry always uses the safest most proven tech for any given system (ABC included- was based on a system already in the market) and genuinely new tech is very rarely introduced for the first time.

 

[ajlsl600]

bow to yr greater knowlage,
but all i can say is tech that ,for example replaces a simple switch and causes hrs of hassle to discover and resolve is not ,for me anyway tech of much use. you will know that even the dealers spend ludicrous amouts of time and effort to resolve a number of issues brought about by this.

 

[Craiglxviii]

bow to yr greater knowlage,
but all i can say is tech that ,for example replaces a simple switch and causes hrs of hassle to discover and resolve is not ,for me anyway tech of much use. you will know that even the dealers spend ludicrous amouts of time and effort to resolve a number of issues brought about by this.

I also know the issues are blown way out of proportion. Plus the issues have changed from mechanical reliability to electrical to now electronic reliability. And that’s improving hand over fist as we learn how to make longer lasting components and assemblies.

Think- transmission servicing is at what mileage now vs 1980? Top end overhauls ditto? Even replacement exhausts...

 

[ajlsl600]

i aggree, notably, that that last line refers to mechanical stuff being more reliable, hopefully the electronic stuff will catch up, i am not confident.

 

[Craiglxviii]

i aggree, notably, that that last line refers to mechanical stuff being more reliable, hopefully the electronic stuff will catch up, i am not confident.

It already is doing so. Look at LED torches now versus old filament lamp torches. Look at smartphones now versus cell phones in 2002- the failures are something like 3% of what they were. Computers too.

 

[ajlsl600]

craig i surrender, last post this subject. see some of yr point ,but wont agree with all yr premis but lets hope they sort out some reliability. i think a good deal of the issues dealt with by the dealers ,even to their own great consternation are far more electrical than mechanical . there is far more electrical stuff, so it kind of stands to reason , but poor quality , poorly designed,unreliable stuff dont help .
out here in the desert i have astra 40t dump trucks ,cat D10,D8, D7 ,graders, volvo and CAT. hitachi 350x3,670x2,870 excavators CAT 966 980 loaders and 325,330,320 excavators a fleet of tippers man and iveco.and much more. i have toughbook diagnostics for most of them and whereas ten yrs ago i was looking at hydraulic guages and schematics,and maybe a test light . or taking a pilot pressure pipe off to see if there was oil coming, or checking a pump case drain.i now spend almost all day with one or more tough books trying to find out which sensor,transmiter,solenoid has failed or is providing false signal .and i have solenoids and wiring and,ecu doing what was previously done with simple pilot pressure and i KNOW thats NOT easier for the end user. what is undisputable is that tier 1,2 engines ,machines are considerably less hassle to maintain than tier 4 difference ,electronics derived emissions equipment, ie egr valves, sensors, or similar for driver opperator comfort.
i will provide just one example ten yr ago a throttle cable went by lever to pump and that was about it and cost a fiver took ten min to fit(simple,cheap,reliable).now twiddle knob in cab goes to electroncs box ,goes to motor that winds throttle cable to pump! .....motor and twiddle box a grand!!!! and i must replace 3,4 a yr so they are NOT reliable. i dont call that sensible progress and i revert to the lever, cable and have bought jcb built in india machines precisely because they DONT have all this crap on them. i
i think i understand what is sensible for my cars and what is not really and i am happy to voice what i believe to be a daft system or idea, i dont expect all to agree with my opinion. overall i am very pleased with my cars benz absolutely nailed the w208clk looks and the sl r230.tho there are systems on them that i do not believe were well thought out.not for the end user anyway.often seems progress for progress sake.

 

[inHen]

OK........

......... so just in case anyone is still interested in my BiZennon issue;-

It occurred to me that the issue with the AMBA Smart Lighting etc was not necessarily due to the headlight not communicating with the sensors behind the windscreen and being a coding issue but an issue between the headlight and ballast module. The eagle eyed amongst you will note that I stated I had not replaced the ballast in it's original position, I had cable-tied it to the top of the headlight for ease of access until the problem was resolved.

So I disconnected it and routed the plug and wiring back through the headlight cluster and refitted the ballast in the original position, i.e. under the cluster and level, and.......

........all functions operating as they should and no coding required!

 

[John Laidlaw]

Well done that man! Thanks for reporting back....