special-ed

Hey all, just had dealer change out left HID and headlight cover due to condensation.
Took the car for a look over at night and noticed that my original HID seems to be shining brighter and whiter compared to the new HID that was just replaced. Is this normal with xenon, halogens, HID's (which ever) when only changing out 1 of the bulbs?

Do new bulbs, specifically HID's, take time to "break in" before they appear brighter?

The original has about 40k road miles on it (1.5 years) and I doubt half of those miles account for when the light was actually on. Not sure what that would equate to hours wise that the original light was used.

Also, the original headlight cover on my right side shows just a small bit of haziness / fading in the clear plastic compared to the new one freshly installed. The new cover definitely looks nice though. Makes it seem like it's fresh off the lot again. Hell, I may just buy a new cover for the right side anyway......

Thanks.

rstark

The color in the old bulb could have shifted to a lower Kelvin rating as time went by thereby having a "whiter" color than the blue on the new bulb. I'm no expert by any means so take this with a grain of salt!

ckya

i thought it's the other way around...it's suppose to get to higher Kelvin compare to new bulb...it's suppose to get tiny notch "bluer" after breaking-in...

MugenR

HID's break in period ends at 100 hours of use.
The reason why the new bulb seems yellow and the old one is white is because the old one is WAY underway or is broken in... the new one will take some time to catch up.

you should stat noticing that they are the smae color around 8-15 hours of use on the new bulb

special-ed

hey mugenr, that's exactly what's going on. new bulb showing a yellow tint while old bulb is definitely whiter (when looking up close). thanks for the fyi

rstark

Learned something new. Thanks!

Tripnbeats

check both bulbs sometimes when they change the parts because the part thats new comes with a whole assembly it gets changed from an osram bulb which is 4300 K a hint of blue with white to a phillips bulb which is 4100k all white and the philips is usually brighter because the color "white" is the brightest color on a chart

n1976jmk

u should change both at same time cause they will never be same color/brightness if you do not.....

TL83s

I have the same F-ing problem........WFT Sucks.....$120.00 So again If I drive around with my lights on all day all night it will take 15hours to get the blue hue????

MugenR

if it is the exact same bulb as the original then you should see it become the same after extended use.. a good fast way to break them in is to use them everytime your drive...

The new bulb will eventually catch up once after the initial 15 hours or so the change of color is so minimal that you can't tell from the naked eye. As long as the bulb type is the same then you'll be fine.

hcekc

Could this haziness/fading be the result of pitting from rocks and road debris, like sandblasting? I have the X-Pel Headlamp Protection and so far the headlights look like new. Got this installed with the clear bra.

skyy406

On new cars they appear "yellowish" with little "blue" As they break in the appear more blue