Replaced my whole pass side housing, bulbs & ballasts and all. All with OEM Audi/Hella from the dealer. The old one was minorly damaged in a fender bender. The new one is definitely HID but does not have the same color appearance. I even tried swapping the bulb from my old one, and it was still different. Its less blue than my other one.
If its still HID and swapping the bulb did not fix it, why else could it be different??

 

Initially I was going to say hid bulbs need to ?burn in? for 100 hours or so to see their true color. But since you swapped bulbs that changes everything. I know hids cause more UV damage to plastic then halogens do, so maybe the reflectors or part of the elipsoid lens itself over the years changed. I know that the color of my aftermarked 4300k hids in halogen fixtures are not the same as factory 4300k bulbs in hid fixtures because my elipsoids have a different shape and therefore bend the light differently.

Just a thought.

 

Is it possible maybe the ballast (Box under the housing) needs to 'burn in'? If thats the case, I will drive with my lights on even during the day to speed that process up..

The color is so different that I thought at first the new one was just a halogen projector & not HID/Xenon...

 

I don't know if the ballast needs to burn in but maybe. I just know that the bulbs do.

 

What other elements effect color? Cause even my old bulb in the new assembly looks different than my old light.

 

"What other elements effect color?"

As far as I know the shape of the reflector/ellipsoid capsule, the age of the bulb, the distance the bulb is from the reflector, I would imagine the wattage (although they should all be 35w) and age/UV damage done over the years of having an extremely bright uv emitting light shinning though it. I recently had my headlights replaced after a minor fender bender. The body shop transferred my old hid bulbs and ballasts into my new fixtures and the light color is not the same as it was with my old fixtures. In my case the light is a little whiter, and my cut offs are sharper now. If your insurance replaced yours maybe you can get them to change the other fixture as well.

 

It was replaced by insurance, and they replaced the whole assembly. Ballasts, bulbs and full housing. I was hoping that transferring my old bulb would have done it but no such luck.. Only other thing I can think of swapping is the ballast. I can't easily swap the ellipsoid projector or reflectors.. I like the color of the old light better. Noticeably more blue...

 

The ballasts they sell now make the bulb burn a different color, you would have to replace both igniters or ballasts to get them to match.
There was a big problem with the bulbs/ballastsin the 3.2LTT a while back and the customer's didn't like the differences in color so audi had us replaceboth bulbs and igniters to keep them happy.

 

Thats exactly the level of detail I needed... Do you think Audi would cover it? I am not in any warranty (that I know of)

I called Audi corporate Customer Service, all they had to say was that the part number has changed over the years but no info on what about it changed...

So what parts can I swap? Just that silver box & that back panel of the light sufficient? And can it be done without removal of the light housing? (Please say yes )

 

Ok, the saga continues.. Swapped ballast, bub, and wires to bulb. And still different color.. So that narrowed it to basically the projector itself. So I started inspecting the old one, and discovered it had a film on it and the new light did not. Upon wiping off that film, it seemed to clear a lot closer to the new light. But the interior of the housing is dirty as well. The front of the projector as well as the chrome reflector parts. How can I clean that without removing the entire thing?