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WHy are my HID's changing color?

Old Jul 7, 2006
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WHy are my HID's changing color?

Well, I bought some xetronic HID's from a dealership for my 2003 civic coupe. 6000k about 2 years ago. About a week ago, I started to notice that my left headlight is getting a lot more blue. Why is that?

When I turn the light on, the right headlight starts out all white and turns whiter, but the left bulb starts out yellow and turns blue. WTF? Is my bulb about to burn out?

If so, where can I get a replacement bulb?

Any help will be appreciated.
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Old Jul 7, 2006
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Are both your bulbs the same colour temp (eg: both 4200K or both 5000K?).

HID bulbs do 'warm up', if you know anyone who has a BMW (or any other marque) with HIDs note the colour of the bulbs when they first start the car and note the colour of the bulbs after the car has been running for say 30mins, they warm up. The bulbs themselves shouldn't change colour over time to the best of my knowledge as they're just gas trapped in a tube, not some sort of coloured coating that will age over time.
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Old Jul 7, 2006
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Yeah I know. They are both 6000k. I know they take time to warm up, but for the past two years they turn on really dim white, then turns super white/blueish. But now..the left one turns on yellow then turns crisp blue, while my right one does what it used to do, turn on low white then super white/blueish.

I think my bulb is about to go out or something. And as you all know its a hassle changing out lights for the 2003 civic coupes. Or atleast for me.
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Old Jul 7, 2006
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as the bulb ages, it shifts to the blue portion of the spectrum. but usually thats not for 5-6 yrs with quality bulbs (yours are not, obviously). an hid bulb will never "burn out" in the traditional sense, just shift towards blue and therefore give off less light. after enough time, they become unusable for light output and must be replaced.
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Old Jul 7, 2006
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Wow, I paid 350 for them back then and a lot of 7thgen people bought the same brand too. I thought they were a good brand, served me until this weird color change. Well I guess I'll just tough it out and see what happens.
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Old Jul 7, 2006
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ya it will only get worse so wait and see. those aftermarket kit sucks with the exception of a select few like catz from japan. and even then the only way to safely and reliably put hid is do a retrofit using oem projector/reflector from a car that comes stock with hid like audi, bmw, etc.
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Old Jul 8, 2006
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Typically HIDs has a useful life span of 2K hours. While regular halogen last a few hundred hours. Other attributes gearbox already mentioned.
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Old Jul 8, 2006
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What is color shift?

The labled light color on an HID bulb is an average that it will maintain over 2-3000 hours. After passing around 100-500 hours the phenonmen "color shift" will take place. Color will change slightly from a yellowish tone to a crisper bluer tone. The magnitude of color shift will vary depending on brand, model and rated color. It is a very gradual change and unless paid close attention to, a customer might not notice. OEM 4100K Bulbs manufactured by Philips has been reported to have a more noticeable color shift than OEM 4100K Osram. OEM 4100K Bulbs manufactured by Philips has a colorshift of approx 250K after 500 hours, which will bring it to up to 4350K.
Asian manufactured bulbs has been reported to have little or no color shift. Most of them come with output stealing blue filters, which may be part of the cause.
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Old Jul 8, 2006
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humm i know mtec hid's just came out recently with in the past year or so, but anybody have any bad expierence's with them? ive had mine for like 7 months now. just wanna know if is hould be expecting anything
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Old Jul 8, 2006
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Originally Posted by rjngo
What is color shift?

The labled light color on an HID bulb is an average that it will maintain over 2-3000 hours. After passing around 100-500 hours the phenonmen "color shift" will take place. Color will change slightly from a yellowish tone to a crisper bluer tone. The magnitude of color shift will vary depending on brand, model and rated color. It is a very gradual change and unless paid close attention to, a customer might not notice. OEM 4100K Bulbs manufactured by Philips has been reported to have a more noticeable color shift than OEM 4100K Osram. OEM 4100K Bulbs manufactured by Philips has a colorshift of approx 250K after 500 hours, which will bring it to up to 4350K.
Asian manufactured bulbs has been reported to have little or no color shift. Most of them come with output stealing blue filters, which may be part of the cause.
It shifted from 6000k, to a crisp blue color? Sorry, im not really knowledgable in the exact terminology.

Thanks for the info, so basically it's just going to stay this way huh?
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Old Jul 9, 2006
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Originally Posted by tp4r.whoooo
It shifted from 6000k, to a crisp blue color? Sorry, im not really knowledgable in the exact terminology.

Thanks for the info, so basically it's just going to stay this way huh?
yes and yes
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