My May 2000 VW Passat 4Motion was my first car that I bought new with HID headlights, so it had headlight washers and the bigger washer tank, my previous Cav GSI 4X4 and Ford Orion Ghia Injections and Escort Ghia, all had a low washer fluid warning built into the tank. So, on my first long journey from Central Scotland to Kent in winter went okay, on the way home, conditions were terrible with lots of salty water getting thrown up, I did notice that the headlight washer had stopped working as you normally see the edge of their spray over the end of the bonnet - then a few miles later, no front screen washer fluid, which was a bit annoying needing to find a truck to tuck in behind when the salt had turned to a white coating on the windscreen - and then get a couple of miles of cleanish windscreen before needing to repeat that tucking in behind a truck to collect his spray. When it was refuelling time (that car only managed 32MPG), I spotted that the service area was stacked with pallets of ready mixed washer fluid - grabbed one of them before continuing our journey!
Back home, I reported this to my local VW dealer, this car was a personal import by the way, VW dealer said to sort this out would cost about £800 as they would need to buy in for me a new dash pod and program it in the car - I said "no thanks", bought what was called VAG-COM and reprogrammed my dash pod to include the low washer fluid warning, and did the same for the brake wear system, I was surprised that VWs supplied with RHD into Holland did not have these fitted features enabled - but VW Group were playing a silly game for anyone buying cars in from outside UK for use in UK!
Back home, I reported this to my local VW dealer, this car was a personal import by the way, VW dealer said to sort this out would cost about £800 as they would need to buy in for me a new dash pod and program it in the car - I said "no thanks", bought what was called VAG-COM and reprogrammed my dash pod to include the low washer fluid warning, and did the same for the brake wear system, I was surprised that VWs supplied with RHD into Holland did not have these fitted features enabled - but VW Group were playing a silly game for anyone buying cars in from outside UK for use in UK!
