Replacement BRZ HID bulbs

[B-R-Z]

When I hit a deer last year I had to have one of my headlights replaced. When my car came out of the shop I noticed my original HID (driver side) no longer matched my new HID (passenger side) so I bought a pair of CnLight 6000k bulbs, which looked awesome initially..perfect shade of white with a hint of blue. Lately I noticed they look borderline halogen when I am driving next to another car that has HID. They looked great for the past year but it looks like they have changed color; I did some research and found that the shift in color should go in the opposite direction. Has anyone else with these bulbs noticed this? I bought these from diodedynamics so I assume they are legit bulbs. I am ok with buying another set, can anyone recommend anything? Philips I assume is a safe bet?

[Fred E]

Philips and Morimoto are both pretty good options and I believe Morimoto is slightly cheaper. The OEM bulbs are Osram Xenarc and can be purchased anywhere. The Retrofit Source has many different HID bulb brands to choose from with a couple different color temperatures for each. I believe 4300k is the color temperature of the OEM bulbs and has a slight orange/warm tinge. A higher number like 5000k would be mostly white and 6000k and above would start to have that blue/cool tinge.

[B-R-Z]

Thanks, I am pretty familiar with HID in general. Yes, 4300k is the stock color temp and the higher you go the bluer/purple you get. The color temp is supposed to increase as they age..so 4300k can shift to 4800k over time, for example.

I am really just looking for an alternate brand recommendation for the 6000k color temp, that is not going to cost me $200. From what I read prior to purchasing, CnLight were supposed to be really good. Weird that they changed into 4300k-3000k color temp on me. At $60, you get what you pay for I guess.

I guess I will maybe try Philips. I am out of the loop a bit on whats new, are we able to swap in LED bulbs into HID housings yet, while maintaining perfect beam pattern?

[soundman98]

no, hid is better then led. led can't currently get the same lumen output as hid. led's main advantage is lumens-per-watt, not overall lumens.

[B-R-Z]

Ended up going with Osram D4S CBB's which are rated at 'up to 7000k' but are actually more like 6000k.

I will post some comparison pics of the 1-year old CnLight 6000k's that DiodeDynamics sells versus the Osrams.