Well, that certainly appears baffling.

I just went out to my own car (same LEDs and 4300K dipped beam HIDs) and I could not discern any colour changes when I turned the dipped beam on and off. Switching on the main beam (halogen) is qutie yellow though and does make the HIDs and LEDs appear a bit bluish.

As you know, LEDs are solid-state devices and it is physically impossible for them to change their colour. They are not like a filament bulb, whose colour can change as the current varies. LEDs only ever put out one colour and are either On or Off.

I think maybe it has something to do with the contrast between the colour temperature of your HIDs and the LEDs. Are your HIDs slightly yellow - which would make the LEDs apparently a bit blue? Its a bit like having standard sidelights, which look 'white' when you have halogen headlights, but very 'yellow' when you swap the halogens for HIDs...

Could you maybe mask one headlight so that only the sidelight is visible and then switch the headlight on and off to prove to yourself that the sidelight is not actually changing colour?

That's all I can think of.

Edited 27 January, 201115 yr by Hauptmann

I think I have the same or a similar HID setup as you Eric, these are the ones you recommended to us. I have been out and took some more pics with a camera but these do look make it look more blue than they should. I did cover one main beam light and yes the side lights do look white, so I think it is the yellow ish look of the HIDs which are causing them to look blue.

Not sure what to do now, I could either go back to Halogen side lights which look dull and yellow but do blend in when main beam is on, or use these which look white when main beam is off but blueish when main beam is on :S

This is a good representaion of how it actually looks

Side lights only.

Well, really I don't know what to say. What colour temp are your HID's? Mine are 4300K and I would say they are a good match to the LEDs. I wonder if you got sent a set of HID burners which were mis-labelled on colour temp or something?

I have personally fitted a few of these LEDs and 4300K HIDs and I think they match-up quite well. Be interested to get comments from others with this setup on this point....

Mine are 4300k as with yours. If I got a wrong set of HIDs wouldn't they be more blueish than yellow or do they go lower than 4300k?

Just been out to try a halogen sidelight and an LED sidelight, OMG the difference is huge!! The LEDs do blend in much better than the Halogens so I think it's just me being anal and starring at my lights too much lol.

Edited 27 January, 201115 yr by martziniuk

Mine are 4300k as with yours. If I got a wrong set of HIDs wouldn't they be more blueish than yellow or do they go lower than 4300k?

Yes, they do go lower than 4300K. The OE ones are 4200K or 4150K and you can certainly go down to 3700K. I once got sent a set of these by mistake and they look very yellow compared with a 4300K

The box has 35w 4300k written on it so I presume it will be right. The HID performance is brilliant tbh I'm glad I got this colour as I wanted it to be as close to O.E as possible.

I think I will keep the LEDs Eric as I could spend a lot of time and money trying to find an LED which works and is a bright enough colour to match the HIDs. It's a shame the extra bright original Ebay ones I got didn't work long enough as they were spot on. I don't think the LEDs you sent have a problem but more a differing of light colours.

Thanks for all your time.

The best light comes from a 4800Kelvin HID bulb its a slightly more white light and is very nice on the road i had them on my hyundai coupe a good few years back.

The best light comes from a 4800Kelvin HID bulb its a slightly more white light and is very nice on the road i had them on my hyundai coupe a good few years back.

The whole business of colour temperature is quite complicated, and 'white' is really a comparative term. Technically anything over 5000K is a bluish-white and anything under 3000K is a yellowish-white. Filament bulbs are around 2900K. Computer monitors usually have their white calibrated to 6500K.

HID lamps naturally give out about 4150K, the other colour temperatures you see are due to filtering, either by the glass envelope or a filter material deposited on the glass. The brain works in mysterious ways though - that's why your standard sidelights look 'white', until you install a set of HID's when they look yellow!

I have 5000k HID's and I would say they look blue compared to the side lights which are, makes Martzinuk's problem even more baffling! :S

I went into town today which was street lit and left my car on side lights whilst I walked away. From a distance I could definitely tell they were blue, it was quite noticeable but In the dark they appear white??

I think they maybe a little blueish now so I'm going to try some sidelight bulbs from an Octy with xenons when I can get to a dealer. These are listed as "Blue glass bulbs" as opposed to the Yellow glass bulb and according to the forums they are actually a bright white. I think with mine being 4300k and closer to O.E xenons these may look better????

I would be interested in some feedback from other people who have these LEDs. I have them fitted (along with 4300K HIDs) on my vRS and I looked at it carefully tonight. Viewed 'head on' both the sidelights and HIDs look a clean white, without any blue tinting.

When viewed from a 45 degree angle (standing in front of the car, but slightly to the side) the sidelights look white and the HIDs look slightly bluish - which I think is due to some chromatic abberation in the projector lens. I am being picky though. I cannot get my sidelights to look blue and, if anything, they are slightly less blue (lower colour temp) than the headlights.

Feedback from other owners would be appreciated, I'd be interested to find out what's going on.

One thing I am thinking is that people's eyes might actually be slightly different, especially at night under low light, when colour vision deteriorates. For example, my right eye sees red colours slightly deeper than my left eye. I noticed that as a child and its never changed.

As I've already said the sidelights you supplied are white and work perfectly in mine, in Martzinuk it seems like the dipped beam is drawing power from the sidelights as they appear dimmer when switiched on in conjuction with the dipped beams. :S

As I've already said the sidelights you supplied are white and work perfectly in mine, in Martzinuk it seems like the dipped beam is drawing power from the sidelights as they appear dimmer when switiched on in conjuction with the dipped beams. :S

Yes, but is that not likely due to his camera's exposure control? I am guessing the camera is 'stopping down' a lot due to the brightness of the headlights and hence making the sidelights look less bright?

Tbh they definitely look blue compared to the white HIDs at night and you really can tell when sidelights are on when it's approaching dusk. Eric is right the camera does show more blue than there actually is but post 27 is a very good example of how my eyes see them.

I will run around in these until I can get some a little more yellowish as I prefer them to a blue tinge, but I won't put the yellow original sidelights in, they were awful!!