Okay so I went out to day and noticed my drivers side headlight is not a white colour light as normal but a pinky orange colour any one else have this happen ?

I thought the head light were Halogen, but with this happening I am thinking could it be HID and a power unit going, can nay one tell me.

 

Pantherman2, first things first, open your driver's door and look down at the hinge that holds the door in place. Do you see a silver/white sticker there with the top saying something to the effect of "this vehicle is equipped with High Intensity Discharge (HID) headlights......". If yes, then you do have HIDs.

Secondly, if you open the hood of your car and access the back of the headlight (either side, doesn't matter) and look into the opening where the low beam is, do you see the back of a bulb and an electrical fitting or do you see a black box in your way? If you see the electrical fitting, then you have halogen bulbs. If you see a black box in your way, then you have HID.

As for the bulb turning funny colors, that normally says something about the HID bulb. But, there are some halogen bulbs that have funny gases in them now to make them more white and this may cause what you are seeing.

Another check that you can do is park your car near a wall. Now, turn on your headlights. Do they "snap" on and remain at full brightness or do you see them "snap" on, then dim, then over the course of say 5 seconds, return to full brightness. The snap on and remain at full brightness is a halogen bulb. The snap on, dim, then return to full brightness is an HID bulb.

If you do have HID bulbs, the ballast going bad is unlikely. Most of the time, your problem is going to be the bulb going bad (assuming you have factory HIDs). If you have aftermarket HID bulbs, then I would need to know what brand to get a better idea of where the problem may lie. Keep in mind that with HID bulbs, the initial "spark" of the HID is around 23,000 volts (yes, that number is correct). It then dies down to a measly 85 VDC. So, measuring this voltage is not something that I would recommend because 1) if you have ever taken a shock from a voltage like this, you will understand, and 2) this sort of voltage will damage most multimeters and make them a big piece of worthless junk.

If you have more questions, let me know.

 

Thanks Thermo! looks like they are halogen and the bulb is the problem and will change it,

Yes I know how that is done by taking out the battery to get at the bulb, always has to be the difficult one LOL

 

Okay I was wrong!!!! they are HID and the transformers going, looked at the wrong place first and the High beams are halogen.

Does that mean I have to replace both sides? or can I get just one?

Have thoughts of just changing to LED replacements, any thoughts!

 

Pantherman2, as for changing 1 or 2 bulbs, I look at it this way: if the bulbs have been in long enough that one is failed, the other is probably not to far behind and might as well do both. Also keep in mind that unless you have small hands, odds are, you will want to remove the front bumper cover to allow you to pull the headlight assemblies out. For the work that is required (not that bad), you might as well have the second bulb and do both at the same time.

As for LED headlight replacements, I have not heard a lot about these. Not to mention that you will end up doing a lot of rewiring inside the headlight as the LED replacements are based on going from a standard 12VDC bulb to the LEDs. When going from HID to LED, you will have to pull out the ballast and then move around the wires to bypass the ballast.

 

+1 on removing front bumper to work on the lights. It's not that difficult, and you'll find working on the lights much easier. Aside from that you're most likely to find that your headlight adjusters are broken too.