Halogen or HID Headlights

The vehicle of the same year, make and model may have several modifications with different low or high beam types. It’s really important to know which headlights style your vehicle got from the factory when upgrading the light bulbs.

“OEM HID Headlights” stand for factory HIDs, original HID headlights and stock HID lights. They all describe the same thing: the vehicle had HID Xenon headlights that were installed by the manufacturer.

So how do you know if you have “OEM HID headlights”?

In fact, there three are possible ways to figure out which lights are installed in your vehicle:

1. The easiest way is to park your vehicle in front of a wall and switch on the headlights. Usually, HIDs are close to the white color while halogens have yellow tint. You can try and compare your high and low beams if your vehicle has separate bulbs for them or switch on the fog lights along with the headlights.

Please, mind, that some halogen bulbs can be blue tinted, but still they are not as bright as HIDs.

2. This is the case when you can refer to an owner’s manual for your vehicle. Sometimes, the bulb sizes can be found there along with the instruction for replacing the light bulb*.

3. The other way out is checking the vehicle identification number (VIN). The dealer can look up your vehicle and tell you which type of the lights you have reading this VIN*.

4. You can take a close look at the headlight housing. HID headlights may have words like ‘Dynamic Xenon D1S/D2S’ etc. displayed on the projector shroud or headlights lens.

5. Here is the last and the most foolproof method: taking the factory bulb out of the headlight housing. This will allow you to see the size which is mentioned on the bulb base and purchase the correct set of the lights.

In case vehicle has the bulb, which size is D1(R/S), D2(R/S), D3(R/S) or D4(R/S), then your headlights are factory HIDs.

If you have any other bulb size installed to your vehicle apparently OEM headlights are halogen.

There are cases when the bulb that was taken out of the housing does not look like lights on the pictures above. In this case you may have aftermarket HIDs or LEDs.

If you still hesitate which type and size of the light bulbs is needed for your vehicle, feel free to send us the photos of them and we will help you make a right choice.

* In case you are not the first owner of the vehicle, it may be that instead of halogen bulbs, aftermarket HID lights are installed. Make sure that there were no aftermarket modifications to the headlight assembly and it was not replaced before checking this information.