Thieving devils or dodgy build?

[jimmymack]

Hi
My wife called me at work yesterday to tell me that she had just noticed the passenger side indicator cluster on her 1999 c200 was missing, it was definitley there the day before as I had cleaned the car by hand and would have noticed it.
When I got home, the only remnant was the wire and connector hanging out, my first impressions were that it had been pinched as normal driving conditions you might have thought would only push the unit tighter into the bodywork rather than have it drop out forwards, however, I tried the other side to see how tight it was and it took only a very light amount of pressure with a couple of fingers to prise it away from the headlamp and pull it out, in fact it took more effort to actually pull the connector wire from the bulb holder.
My wife had retraced her journey back to work but there was nothing to be found, not even the remains of a broken one.
My question is this, is it a known thing for these to fall out, and if not, is there a way to make them a little less easy to steal?
Thanks
Phil

 

[jimmymack]

as this post has been duplicated, any chance of removing it?

 

[sol2520]

Hi Phil, same happened to my 300ce about 2 years ago. I had replaced them with the clear lenses from the orange indicators. While driving home one sunday afternoon i realised the lamp warning light had come on. Thinkin it was one of the brake lamps probably gone i continued to drive my 7 mile journey. When i got hone i had realised my passenger indicator had fallen somewhere on my journey and i had not even realised. I had it replaced and never have had this problem since but i wash my car by hand and would,ve realised if it was loose. It was there when i started my journey so all i can presume was that it must have fallen out. After talking to the mercedes specialist it was said that although rare it does happen because he's often getting asked for indicators.

 

[guydewdney]

common problem on the w202 - make sure you really push the new one in hard...