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THIS DISCUSSION / SOURCE-DERIVED OVERVIEW
Discussion summary
YOUR RESEARCHHeadlight washer covers flew off
Leading reported evidence
Use washers
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Leading evidence: 'Use washers' (no explicit attributable resolution; this is a reported action or suggestion). Across 1 matching discussions, The most frequently discussed action is 'Clean headlight enclosures' (1 discussions). For that action, 0 discussions report a resolution and 0 report an unsuccessful attempt. No action has an explicit, attributable resolution report under the current rules. These are forum reports and suggestions, not a confirmed diagnosis.
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Suggestion
I would rather save money on the car and promote better ways to clean headlight enclosures.
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Suggestion
My first experience is if one uses the washers one then has to wash the car.
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18 eligible posts · 0 unverified posts · 1 discussions match the subject in their title or opening post.
Rennlist: 1 discussions
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Just bought the car and these little guys flew off a few hours after. Is it an easy swap? Does porsche typically stock them?
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I don't know but have read stuff on these forums that those little guys self eject if actuated while moving. The wiper/washer control lever is a bit confusing and many have said triggering it the wrong way while moving results in this problem!
I sometimes wonder if Porsche knew what they were doing with the facelift changes! The 996.1 seems to lack the bling of the 996.2 but it all works and hangs together. IMHO
I don't really understand the popular sentiment that silver plastic manhole covers was an improvement over the .1 headlights...but then again I have a "ghetto" 996 that doesn't even
have
headlight washers.
Easy fix. Happened to me while on the highway. Actuated the headlight washers by accident and it left a nice chip in the paint when it decided to leave on permanent vacation.
Another reason to never clean your windshield has highway speeds. I've learned my lesson on this too... ours scrapped the fool out of the front plastic headlight enclosures. I guess at 70 mph, it's like a mini-sand blaster.
Shortly after I bought my 2003 Turbo I drover it to the office and some co-workers came out to look the car over. One woman pointed to the chrome washer covers wanted to know what they were and I told her. She was not clear on what headlight washers were so I thought I'd show her. I managed to trigger the headlight washers and the things popped up and sprayed cleaner onto the headlights and suds and foam went everywhere, well, from the headlights back over the car.
At the same time the woman and the others jumped back. The washers pop up with some violence and this caught the people off guard.
That is the only time I've used the washers. My first experience is if one uses the washers one then has to wash the car.
Hahhahaaha!
Yea, I've owned several cars with headlight washers and for the life of me, I can't even imagine a time when I would really need them. I guess if I had an off road 4x4 Jeep and mud got on the headlights at night, this would be useful tool, but for the average car, it's nothing more than a poor attempt to make something exclusive when it doesn't need to be. IMHO, the headlight washers do more harm than good.
When HID headlights first became popular in Europe, euro regulations mandated an effective headlight washer as part of the brighter headlight system. Just as a dirty, grimy, streaky windshield scatters oncoming light into your eyes as a glaring mess. Dirty headlights also send glare out towards oncoming drivers, defeating the sharp focused cutoff that keeps the light on the road and away from the eyes of oncoming cars. This is extremely important for the Rennlist forum demographic (old people).
The powered brush and water squirt systems available for some 1960s Chryslers and the miniature windshield style wiper blades on 1970s Volvos etc. were effective because they worked on flat glass sealed-beam headlights. The shapely, steeply raked plastic headlights of present cars require a high-pressure blast of heated or oscillating cleaner to do the job. Unfortunately, the rest of your car, adjacent cars, and hapless pedestrians also get a drenching.
Thank you for the helpful information Jennifer. My responses are below...
Only the European Union could conjure up such a useless regulation and I guess that explains why all of my Volvos have this horrid technology. The result of these marvelous water shooting' inventions is scratching of the plastic headlight enclosures over time
thus
causing more dispersed light than what the washers were designed to prevent in the first place. Also, the blurring of light coming from our headlights is less annoying than the intensity of light produced by newer HID. And although I understand what you're trying to convey, but eye strain associated with windshield glare vs. light diffraction from dirty headlights are totally two different phenomena. A better method of quantifying eye strain of a person in a driving situation would be to measure visibility between the average halogen spot lamp versus the average Xenon HID lamp. That would be a great study! The most common complain that people (from the receiving end) have with HID lights are two things - brightness and color. Since HID lamps that use Xenon lamps produce a higher kelvin (4000K+), higher intensity (3000+lumens) light, and aftermarket HID systems are known to produce color temperatures beyond 9,000K and higher intensity. As a comparison, the normal Halogen lamps produce a color temperature of 3200K and a brightness of 900 - 1300+ lumens which produces a warmer (i.e. yellow) light. And that may explain another phenomena... people in our culture are more accustomed to "warm lights" and if you change them to a higher kelvin light, then most will say, "it's too bright!" even if it produces the same level of intensity. This may also explain why many people complain about HID types systems. And so, IMHO opinion, the problem is more about intensity (lumens, concentration, etc.) and color temperature (kelvin) than clarity.
Who you calling old??? hahaha
Again, that proves my point. Good intention sometimes have unforeseen consequences. I would rather save money on the car and promote better ways to clean headlight enclosures. Soft cloth and mild glass cleaner works for me. Cheers!
Frankly, I've never understood the point of headlight washers. Since when does anyone let their car get so dirty that the headlights won't work?
If the headlights are that filthy, so is the rest of the car. Get it washed.
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