I don’t much work on cars these days, compared to the days of changing clutches and gearboxes, to the degree that I’ve never actually laid tools on this Leon (well, apart from VCDS).

I changed that, firstly by scraping the passenger mirror on a wall when parking. I was lucky, and got a replacement in the right colour from Ebay for a fraction of the price of a new mirror and paint.

Fitting wasn’t so bad: remove the door card (the clips are tight and need a surprising amount of force to remove and refit):

disconnect the cables, remove the speaker and a bit of foam for access, and undo one nut. Job done.

The second bit was the washer pump, which had decided to expire. Gratifyingly, this is the only actual component failure since I’ve owned the car, but it had done this once before, logging this code:


787212 - Windshield Washer Pump
B1261 01 [00001000] - Electrical Failure
Intermittent - Confirmed - Tested Since Memory Clear
Freeze Frame:
Fault Priority: 3
Fault Frequency: 1
Reset counter: 46
Mileage: 70168 km
Date: 2025.09.01
Time: 06:37:06


one morning on the way to work (for once, the timestamp is correct). Last time, clearing the code brought it back to life, but no such luck, and the ECU locked out the headlight washers too.

Not too bad to fix: jack up and remove the front nearside wheel, remove part of the arch liner (8 T25 screws), and the pump is there and just levers out, and the connections unclip.

The new pump was just over a tenner, and fitting wasn’t hard.