Hi All. Hope you can help.

When I got my Octavia vRS I noticed it didn't have any headlamp washers like my sister's Elegance. I put this down to having the vRS bumpers but I've seen a few cars with them. Where they an option or something? I imagine you can retro-fit but the time & effort involved would outweigh the benefits?

Another thing that my sister's Elegance has is the courtesy light in the wing mirror which lights up the door handle when the car is unlocked. As far as I can tell our wing mirrors are the same, so I wonder if you can retro-fit that to a vRS as I would really like that.

A picture of my car for your troubles:

RN049183 by Rob'll Pics, on Flickr

Headlight washers are only fitted to the vRS if it has the optional xenon headlights fitted. On the Elegance they are fitted whether xenon's are specced or not.

I would imagine to retrofit them would be cost prohibitive as you'd need to buy the components, cut the bumper, change the washer bottle, paint the covers, code the electronics etc.

I too noticed that my vRS doesn't have the puddle lights. Parked next to my Scout which does have them I noticed the shape of the cluster is identical so fitment would be easy enough, however is the wiring present in the wing mirror, are they simply plug and play I wonder?

This is mine with the factory fit xenon's and headlight washers...

Edited 13 October, 201114 yr by silver1011

I'm quite jealous. How much better is the light provided by the Xenons?

Mine too has zenons first time I have had them on a car and am really impressed would never buy a car without them now.

Xenonx are fantastic wouldnt buy another car without them.

Ahh jeez, you're all making me jealous. Is it just another type of bulb or something more complicated?

Ahh jeez, you're all making me jealous. Is it just another type of bulb or something more complicated?

nnoooooo totally different units. But I agree, would not be without them now

In theory it's just another bulb. In practice, it has to have the correct reflectors (as the point of origin is in a different place)*, a cleaning system and a leveling system too. (according to the DVLA)

*you can retro-fit, but has to be the complete unit, not just the bulb, as the 'E' approval is given on a bulb+reflector basis.

Xenon bulbs are very different to halogens in that they do not have a filament in them, they work in a similar way to a fluorescent light in that a high voltage burst of electricity is needed to produce an arc to get them going, hence you hear people talking about the ballast in their lights and then they produce a much better, stronger light using less power, about 35 watts as opposed to 55 watts for your typical halogen. That is the reason that they have to be self leveling and have washers in order to prevent dazzling of oncoming roadusers.

The retrofit of puddle lights has been covered in the forums before and I believe the concensus of opinion is that it would be a lot of hard work to do as there is no wiring in the vRS door to allow a simple plug and play of the lights to be done.

Ian