Headlight Conversion for European Driving

[Passat Devotee]

I've spent hours on internet research and I'm at my wits end about what to do to convert my UK-spec 13-plated B7 Estate headlights for continental driving. For 12 years I owned a B5.5 Estate and that had a small lever behind each headlight to mask the left "kick up" above horizontal for going overseas. Took only 10 mins (after being shown by the independant VW specialist garage how to do it, because it's not in the manual, only "take me to your VW agent"!) But my new B7 doesn't have these levers (at least I can't find out anything about them.)

My B7 owner's manual says you can activate Travel Mode in the Light & Vision submenu which will switch the lights over to driving on the right, but Travel Mode doesn't appear in my menu list - I believe this is because it applies only to Xenon headlights and mine are H7 halogens. Presumably resorting to VCDS to activate Travel Mode won't actually do anything unless the headlight conversion mechanism is present, which I presume it is not.

Owner's manual goes on "In vehicles in which the headlights cannot be adjusted via the menu, stickers should be applied to certain parts of the headlights lenses." So just how High Tech is the Passat, then? This is 1950s technology!

However the VW accessories brochures don't actually carry headlight stickers for B7s as they do for some other VW models, possibly supporting what my local VW main dealer now tells me that B7 Passats don't require stickers because the dip headlight has a flat beam (like all European cars) without the left "kick up". But even this is not neccessarily so!

Eurolights are little "one size fits all" diffusers which can be stuck onto the headlight lenses to mask off the left "kick up". In the Eurolight documentation there is a diagram showing where to place these diffusers on a B7 Passat. But if my VW main dealer is right they shouldn't be neccessary.

So who IS right? Do B7 Passats require headlight adjustment to drive on the European continent or not? And if so, how can the adjustment be implemented?