Older Vehicles is this MOT fail unique?

[shayes]

Took my 21 year old 500SEL for its MOT, to fail on amongst other things, the fact that " Nearside and offside rear indicators the incorrect colour".

Fact is, that YES the indicators in the rear cluster appear more red than orange. Not a case of having replaced with clears or smokeys but.......

Am I alone in having this unique original feature and was it for the overseas market?? If they had faded it would make sense but looks o/e to me AND THEY ARE RED.!

Anyway, scurried around to get a set from an ebay breaker as don't think yellow bulbs will do the trick. If only they were the only fail point. Fell foul of slight Number plate trickery (no point in having a special plate if you cant tweek a 5 to become an S) and a wee bit of rust to be plated.

Car too good to go to the breakers.

 

[Blobcat]

Hi Stuart

I think it is something they are looking at as part of the new MOT. My 6yr old W210 has 'Advisory 001 Rear (both) direction indicator slightly discoloured [1.5.ALD]. Now mine are tinted from new being an Avantgarde so not sure why this year it has been listed as an advisory, thankfully not a fail in my case though.

 

[television]

Some people in the states use dye to colour them even black and use yellow lamps. Why not try the yellow lamps and ask an MOT station if they will pass it

Malcolm

 

[Rory]

In cars with white lenses and orange bulbs it's quite a common failure that the bulbs are not orange enough. It was mentioned on my wife's Clio (a few yrs ago) when it was being serviced by a Renault dealer - they said they would fail it.
It had passed its MOT the day before in our village garage. However they also hadn't picked up on both rear springs being broken!!

 

[jberks]

The dealer changed the bulbs on by C class a few years ago for the same reason - too white apparently.

 

[shayes]

Have just walked past two modern Cars (by my standards) an (02) Peugeot 206 and an (05) Citroen C3 neither of which had yellow reflective plastic in their rear clusters. All red, or did I miss something high up?.

Unless these cars have 24 LED light bulbs (which need load resistors if they flicker) then puzzled as to if they will pass MOT when necessary?

 

[television]

Have just walked past two modern Cars (by my standards) an (02) Peugeot 206 and an (05) Citroen C3 neither of which had yellow reflective plastic in their rear clusters. All red, or did I miss something high up?.

Unless these cars have 24 LED light bulbs (which need load resistors if they flicker) then puzzled as to if they will pass MOT when necessary?

Hello Stuart, if you look at the rear of my SL,the lamps look all red. When I read your original posting I went down to look at the rear, in the center I have a clear panel,hardly noticable with a yelow buld for indicators and a white one for recversing.

Malcolm

 

[mlc]

I assume that the problem is that the lens have faded due to age. This is not a new MOT item, my fathers Granada had the same fail 20 odd years ago.

It might seem a bit harsh, if you really think you are been badly treated you can apeal, but you need to be sure of your facts before going down that route.

Mark

 

[shayes]

I think it must be something to do with London pollution (ha ha). The Car was owned from new and garaged by a London Doctor for nineteen years of its life.

Yet, see a one year younger car that I am purchasing the light
cluster from, and you can see that there is no question of the cornerlights on that car being anything other than orange.
Baffling stuff.

hotlink
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220035206218&sspagename=ADME:B:RTQ:UK:1

 

[shayes]

Believe me they are red.........Yellow dont go red when it fades!

 

[Blobcat]

They are red. They do use red turn rear turn signals in North America on some cars. Although I cannot remember if MB use them over there.
On a lot of North American cars it is the brake lights that double as turn signals.