My passenger headlight went out. I swapped the HIDs from one side to the other and it worked fine so its not the bulb. I figured it was the ballast. I called a mechanic that deals with foreign cars, they quoted me $1100 because I cant replace the ballast by itself, they said I need the whole headlamp.

I called the dealer to verify this and they quoted me at $1400 for the headlamp swap, and said the same thing "Cant swap the ballast alone."

Is this accurate?

 

The ballast is replaceable I replaced mine about a month ago my ballast went out as well.
You can find an oem type ballast on eBay or I think the retrofit source website may have them also . To access the ballast you must remove the headlight and on the bottom of the headlight there will a cover covering the ballast remove cover screws and the ballast is held down by I believe 3 or 4 screws can't remember. It's pretty simple once you have the headlight out. Also we do have individual fuses for our headlights located next to the battery a pita to access. But most of the time it will be the ballast from what I've read. For a more detail visual I used black Betty's DIY painting headlights write up you can search it and it'll help a lot

 

Agreed. Dealers scam. My BMW was the same was 988 to replace it, and it was a module that failed due to moisture, 80 bucks later finding one, and the pain of taking the bumper off that krautmobile i was back in business and not broke.