Xenon or not bit puzzled

[Whizzkid]

Hi All.

 

 Not my strong point as more of an engine man. My Mk2 AWD SE is fitted with headlamp washers. Which as far as I know are only fitted to cars with Zenon lights. I came to change a bulb a couple of weeks ago and they are H7. Is it possible the previous owner could have changed them from Zenon ( I assume its a different holder ) ? Or could they have just purchased the Headlamp washers as an extra even though it had std lights ?

[KenONeill]

@Whizzkid - Well, there is no such thing as "zenon"; the closest I can come to a thing is the noble gas "Xenon". Regarding head lights generally, there is something called a "plasma discharge" unit, which was an optional item on the Octavia from at least the mk1 facelift, say 2001. Also, head light washers were a standard or optional item on the Elegance, L&K and vRS trim levels from the facelift. So a regular quartz-iodine (or quartz-xenon) bulb could be fitted with or without headlight washers on any car from 2001 on.

[MikeTheThinker]

22 minutes ago, Whizzkid said:

Hi All.

 

 Not my strong point as more of an engine man. My Mk2 AWD SE is fitted with headlamp washers. Which as far as I know are only fitted to cars with Zenon lights. I came to change a bulb a couple of weeks ago and they are H7. Is it possible the previous owner could have changed them from Zenon ( I assume its a different holder ) ? Or could they have just purchased the Headlamp washers as an extra even though it had std lights ?

 

Headlamp washers were standard on a number of higher-spec models regardless of the type of headlamp fitted - our '07 2.0tdi 4x4 has them but doesn't have Xenon bubs.

[john999boy]

To make things (potentially) even more confusing, I seem to recollect that the Mk2 VRS FL didn't actually have full xenons - just ones for dip or main or vice versa.

Or could I be dreaming this?

Edited 28 December, 2019 by john999boy
Updated model info.

[nick74]

My 2007 Elegance had headlamp washers with conventional halogen headlamps too. 

[Whizzkid]

Many thanks for the replies, looks like it was just fitted with std lamps and washers. 

[langers2k]

4 hours ago, john999boy said:

To make things (potentially) even more confusing, I seem to recollect that the Mk2 VRS FL didn't actually have full xenons - just ones for dip or main or vice versa.

Or could I be dreaming this?

 

Yup, only xenon for dipped/low beam.

 

High/main beams are a seperate halogen bulb...

[slow_nick]

Any car have have headlight washers, you are only required to have them if you have a low beam light source with an output that exceeds 2000 lumens, which all 35W xenon lamps will. Some cars are now being fitted with 25W xenons and LED headlamp units which do not exceed 2000 lumens and therefore do not require washers. See the Ford Mustang or any new Renault with LED headlights...

 

The Elegance and Scout model Octavia's have headlamp washers regardless of whether xenons are fitted or not, and xenons were an optional extra on both.

 

As said above the xenon unit in the mk2 FL Octavia is a single xenon - for low beam only. The high beam is still a H1 halogen bulb I think.