Xenons

Will go for Xenons anyway, but is it worth the additional £305 to have the Adaptive Xenons & cornering lights ?

The road leading to our house is single track with high hedges on either side and when coming up the road in a FFRR when I get to a quite sharp bend in the road a light comes on and lights up the bit of the corner that the headlights pointing straight ahead don’t cover – it’s rather nice – but at the end of the day I’m not sure it makes a great deal of difference. When I first saw the LED’s at the bottom of the bumper on the Evoque I thought they were the same sort of arrangement – but having seen cars drive around the factory those LED’s were always off despite the cars turning some very tight corners so the Evoque looks like it uses the more traditional moving headlamp arrangement which is an added mechanical complication to a system that’s already complicated. I think unless your driving involves lots of unlit windy roads there are better things to spend your money on. Just my opinion

I had adaptive xenons with cornering on my RRS, the cornering is good - when your speed drops below 30mph (IIRC) and you set the indicator to flash then a small floodlight on that side comes on illuminating the side of the road. If you are in a multistorey carpark then when you turn the steering wheel more than 1/4turn then the same happens if the headlights are turned on. It cannot be retro fitted to the car and replacement headlamp units for the RRS cost >£550 EACH (I know I had to buy two!) The headlamps don't actually move the cornering lamp is a second more powerful lamp in the side light reflector. Apart from passengers wondering what this light was that came on when we turned corners in the dark they also used to comment on the little "dance" that the adaptives do when you switch the lights on each time. The beams sort of start pointing downward and then move vertically up and then around until they have self levelled. Occassionally when you are stopped in traffic they go through the same "dance" as a self check. I often got asked if there was something wrong with my headlights by people who had not seen it before. I have a photo of the cornering lights which I will post if I can find it

BTW the LED foglights - having now learned that the "bar" of LEDs is not the "signature" lights I wonder now how many 2009MY+ Mercedes owners are really driving around with their foglights on...................... and some Porsche, Skoda and Audi owners

Edit:
Here is a photo of the section of the headlight unit showing the side light (in this case it is the lower lamp which I replaced with a 5 LED unit) and the angled "projector" lamp of the cornering light