Intelligent light system inoperative

...more of the time, to boot.

 

Only when it works

 

Which it does 99.9% of the time. Actually it’s more like 99.9994%.

Ask yourself this question, how many cars do you see with a failed headlamp and a sidelight still on? I see dozens every day. A lot more than you will see failed LED ILS cars.

 

If it's £1200 for a failed ILS headlamp it'd stay failed

 

The problem is, it’s £20 for a failed H7 and they don’t get replaced either...

 

I've got ILS in the C Class & SLC, I don't care what it costs as it's so superior to all other headlight systems, I would never buy another car without it. In the next 10 years every new car sold will have ILS anyway & the cost will have dropped drastically.

Russ

 

I have it on the 212 and I will really miss it when it goes back. The system is superb.

I’m on the team developing an ILS system now for another OEM. Matrix LED is far superior to anything on the road now. Car headlights are approaching 1K resolution where they can effectively show a black and white TV picture on the road, if so programmed.

The main problem with ILS is that it requires other sensors to function (camera, rainlight, lux etc) and if these are u/s it becomes a dumb lamp system. No worse than anything else on the road but not intelligent. So failure mode analysis shows that failures are usually as a result of dirty windscreens due to owners not replacing wiper blades (and thus not keeping the screen in front of the high speed camera clean) or lux sensor failing, than anything to do with the lamp.

Actual lamp electronics failures are very, very rare. Not just MB but global, we are talking a few thousand units out of several tens of millions of cars in the market that have failed due to dead lighting engine/ internal components.

 

No idea where you buy your H7 bulbs from.

 

So, in the winter, when our cars are dirty due to not enough day light or time to wash our cars, we can expect our fancy lighting to fail?

 

For those that doubt the ILS is worth it I can wholeheartedly say it is fantastic and makes driving at night a revelation.

It’s worth having it, when I think of some cars I have had and the lights were pants, actually dangerous in my opinion.

The ILS system works by magic and the car needs taking to Hogworts for repair or Comand Online but not sure if they do the lights but worth an enquiry.

I hope your lights get sorted without too much expense.

Robin


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

I don't dont doubt hey are good, but it seems that they are a victim of compexity for the sake of it. If they are such a revelation, why don't they fit them to all cads as standard? Mercedes didn't even fit HIDs as standard to my car.

 

It doesn’t matter. The point is that regardless of the cost, there are enough people driving around with failed bulb headlamps. The fact is that the replacement cost is in the tens not the multiple hundreds of pounds or more shows that regardless of the lighting source, people don’t care whether or not they work.

 

Fail as in, intelligent function doesn’t work. Not fail as in, lights don’t come on. The lights still work, main beam still comes on when the stall is pushed forwards etc.

The “wash the car” but is also a red herring. These sensors are located on the windscreen within the A arc of wiper sweep. Thus if they are not working due to a dirty screen, the screen is de facto too dirty to see through legally to drive. So, as a driver it’s YOUR responsibility to keep the windscreen clean and free of cracks etc. This falls into that category.

I had my ILS fail midwinter, due to ice forming on the windscreen in front of the camera. It started working again after 5 mins of driving as the windscreen had by then defrosted fully.

 

Because the technology is expensive and because OEMs rigidly control the costs of their assembled products. The tech is expensive because it’s new. As technology matured the cost drops and bottoms out in a bathtub curve shape, climbing when the replacement tech comes along and disrupts it.

Right now we have HiD being replaced by LED (that’s just about 100% complete now). At the time LED lamps were introduced the technology to steer a lamp AND to fit moveable shades came in too. They were combined into ILS stage 1. Motorised, mechanically driven so costly.

Now we have matrix LED which is a block of LEDs about 3 x 1”, containing between 50-1000 individual, individually addressable LEDs. That means each LED can be turned on or off independently. Add the right optics to that and the mechanically driven function gets done electronically. So, costs come down.

Now build 50% of automotive lighting output as that tech, rather than the 7% it currently is and the costs come down even further still.

It isn’t complexity for the sake of it. It’s getting cars to do more and more, in more, smarter ways.

 

I have got ILS but not LED bulbs so the worst (financially) of both worlds.

Went out in sister 2017 S Class, lights are OK but nothing spectacular, she wouldnt have a clue whether she had ILS or not!

 

If people aren't replacing £6 bulbs, then there's no chance they'll replace a £1200 headlamp.
I've half a dozen or more spare H7 bulbs that I do use if one blows.

 

You should have ALS (adaptive lighting system) not ILS I believe in your 216.

 

That was my point exactly. It doesn’t matter whether or not a lamp replacement costs £6 or £600 if it doesn’t get done either way around. And we can see the number of failed halogen lamps around; I did a quick count this morning on my way in to work (I’m very sad like that) and around a quarter of all cars had a failed headlamp bulb or complete unit. 23%.

And either way around, ILS IS a far better system in every measure of lighting performance, AND the costs of it are coming down every year as the tech behind it becomes more mainstream.

 

But you have to say that ......
If I ever part with my money & buy a CLS estate, shooting brake, I'll know one way or t'other

 

Don't bother arguing with unbelievers, ILS is the best ever improvement to car lighting and ranks against ABS as the best car safety improvement in eons, that is why it will be standard on all cars soon.

Russ