Hey folks,

I have had my '06 Z for three weeks now, and I have a little gripe that I was hoping you all could make me feel better about (this is directed to 2006 Z owners, or people who know a lot about them). For some reason, it seems like my headlights put out a much more yellow light than it is white. Obviously it's not like fog light yellow, but the xenon bulb color output is not much whiter than the cheap wedge bulb parking light that comes installed from the factory. EDIT: I just went out and re-evaluated that comment, and the HIDs are naturally much closer to white than the parking lights...I overexaggerated the first time. HOWEVER, the HIDs resemble Murano / Maxima white when I first turn them on, but once they are fully heated and settle out they lose most of the white-blue color. What gives?

I can see fine at night and everything, so my gripe is mostly cosmetic. Why is it that I see Murano's driving around with these bright white HIDs yet the headlights on my '06 Z seem yellow? Am I missing something? I thought I would have the white-ish color with blue-ish cutoff tinge that every other factory projector HID system emits....

All input is appreciated. thanks,

Steve


EDIT #2: Please, before anyone writes "This thread is useless without pics", I just went out and took some and the headlights are drowned out by the ambient overcast sun glare. If I have time later I will take some when it is dark out, although I suck at using a camera so even then I may not get my point across.

 

all i can say is that my 05 xenons look fairly "white" to me....with a very tiny bit of blue in there too

 

It's all in the optics. My Infiniti FX was the same way. At first I chalked it up to differences between DOT spec housings and ECE Euro-spec housings (Bimmers have the sweetedt looking HIDs), but then if you lok at a Maxima, they have about the same look as the BMWs, with the nice blue color shift, so I dunno what the deal is or why Nissan couldn't have been consistent and made the Z and FX bixenons the same way. Not much you can do about it, unfortunately. Some people put in higher color temp aftermarket HID bulbs to make the light overall more blue, but that's a ricer solution and light output decreases as color temp increases. I've seen something about bending a reflector inside the housing a bit (on other models) to get more of a blue cut-off (don't know if it gives you the color shift flicker you see in other cars when driving or not), but it seems a bit too risky to mess around with. Bottom line: you just gotta live with it.

 

also take it back and ask the service department at nissan about this issue.

 

Weird, I know the headlights are pretty blue on my 06(projectors), because I saw the valet bring the car up this past weekend, its not bmw or audi blue though. +1 about the maxima though, they are reallyy blue for some reason. Take the car to get it checked out or something.

 

There's nothing wrong with the headlights. The 06 bi-xenons have a fresnel lense, which means, theres a whole bunch of little ripples on the actual projector lense. This type of lense kills most of the color and sharp cutoff compared to other very nice colorful projectors out there (TL,TSX,Maxima,Audi A4's, BMW's). The only way to fix this is to open up your headlight and do a washer mod or find a clear lense that will fit on your projector (will be hard to find). You can learn alot on hidplanet.com/forums

 

I find it amazing the things that people whine about with their Z. My Z's lights are nit white enough. My Z is bad in crosswinds. My Z's top speed is only 156. On and on and on it goes.

 

Yeah I was afraid that I would just have to live with it. I do find it odd, though, that the color looks nice and white with blue flicker when they are in the heat-up process, but then the color goes away once they get up to full temp. I also agree that putting higher color temp bulbs is rice-a-roni. It still won't give the true HID bluish flicker...it will just give a cheesey bluish color, and decrease the headlight brightness.

Oh well. Crap.

 

Hey man...I was just saying that I expected the HIDs in the Z to be on par color-wise with other OEM HID systems...especially those included with other Nissan vehicles. Honestly, I don't feel that it's a ridiculous complaint for a ~$30k 'sports' car.

Maybe you will say "well that's what test drives are for" etc etc. Well I thought that for 30 grand they would give me HID quality as good as similarly-priced Hondas, Acuras, and other Nissans. Not to be totally flippant, but I guess I had some expectations for this car considering the money it is costing me, and I am finding that it has some let-downs.

 

i just thought our 06 bixenons were like 6000kelvin which is like bright white with a TIDGE of blue. i was rollin next to a denali on the freeway the other night and my lights looked like $5 bulbs compared to his. but IM SURE he had those 13000kelvin lights.... BRIGHT PURPLE.

Maxima bi-xenons are always bright as hell when they are coming towards you... the light itself isnt bright, but they BLIND my entire vision. i thought we had those same bixenons.

 

How about people who want the Z to be lighter with more HP?

https://my350z.com/forum/showpost.ph...7&postcount=60

What if some guy doesn't care for more HP, but he is really into lighting and complains about the lighting. Who are you to say what a person should or shouldn't complain about?

Don't get me wrong, sometimes I can't stand the whining either, but through the post, I learn new things, like you can adjust the distance of the lense to make it more white, etc.

Complaining/whining has some positives as well.

 

Bulb color is a function of temperature rated in degrees Kelvin. Two people can look at the same bulb. One will say yellow and the other blue.

Just replace the bulbs with a different K.

 

If you actually knew about HID's and projectors it is actually considered an inferior quality for a projector to give off a blue cutoff. Car manufacturers try and make the whitest light but it is just an inconsistency in the lense and projector. Just because your light may not be as nice and purple as say a Maxima, doesn't mean the Maxima is better. You'd actually be surprised how the 06 Z Bi-Xenons actually destroy the Maxima in terms overall beam output and width. The Maxima projector (an actual e55 projector) just happens to put out more color at its cutoff, and that is what you see when its coming at you, its blue and purple flicker. Visit Hidplanet.com/forums and you's can learn much more.

 

And like I implied in my original post, this is definitely a form over function issue. I agree that the '06 headlights work great. The '06 lights do indeed have a blue/violet cutoff line which can easily be seen when they are sprayed against a white surface. At night when I am out driving the reflection of the lights off a white or blue car in front of me will make the lights look white/blue, but reflection off of most other color cars looks just like regular halogen bulbs.

And as a side note, was I really whining in my first post? If mentioning a problem/concern and asking for other consumers' feedback is whining, then I guess I better re-evaluate my style of internet forum posting

 

I love my 06 headlights..

 

ya know, i think like you do when I read some of these posts here, but then after thinking about it, we're all here to just voice out anything and everything about the car...where else can we really do that? and ya know, sometimes I'm glad I find a post that's considered "stupid", because sometimes it's something that I don't think of, but when someone really asks about that, it benefits me...case in point, "how to drive a manual", you would think someone would know how to drive a manual well to own a Z, but well, it's funny reading them threads and see how everyone seems to drive differently...I think I drive a manual pretty well, but reading them threads actually help me here and there....

i'm not arguing with you, because there are some stupid threads out there...but something stupid to me may benefit another in a different way, and vice versa

 

Yeah and as another clarification, the first sentence of my original post directs the thread towards other '06 owners so that I can compare the light output of my HIDs to the light output of their HIDs, in an effort to troubleshoot whether my bulbs/projectors are defective, or if that's just the way they all look. But it seems as though the color I am seeing is common amongst all 2006 Z owners...so at least that means I don't have to take it back to the dealer!

 

Mine are incredible. No complaints here. Of course, I'm coming from really crappy halogens on my old Camaro, so these are 10000 times better. I took some pics with my gf's digital cam the other day, so once she comes home, I'll upload those for you to compare.

 

Thanks man, I would really appreciate that.

 

6000k Hid. It's fun for a while until you get bord.