1 year after my original post about this issue and a progress (or not) report.

Had a failure of the dipped  beam in Jan '24, thought it was the bulb, turned out to be the ballast.  Got a second hand ballast and all worked fine for about 2 weeks.

February '24, headlight levelling cocked up - Forscan and a garage both told me that both levelling motors were kaput - drivers side totally, passenger side intermittent fault.  Headlights set to lowest / safety mode.

Manually adjusted light level up to try and compensate and blag it for a bit, but also the level of light coming from either light had never been very good, so put two new bulbs in.

Bought 2 x new headlight units (not genuine ford) from Ricambi in Italy.  Stung for import tax which I stupidly didn't think about but neither did they say anything on their Ebay listing which they should have done.

Lights were great for half a day, until took them to a garage for the levels setting and was told they were for a Left Hand Drive car and illegal FFS.

Sent the lights back to Italy, where they're still stuck in customs because we left the EU (another story), but have got my money back from Ebay after 2 months of arguing.

Bought 2 second hand lights from Ebay last week, put them on, working fine in terms of headlight levelling etc, no errors on the dash, will pass the MOT, BUT, still crap output onto the road.

All looks ok when you stare at the front of the car, but there's nothing reaching the road.

A bit more research (sick to death of this now) and seems that the reflectors fade or something and might need rechroming, but the lights are sealed units and I don't think it can be done.

A question I have though, should the internal light lens be cloudy?  Are they like this when new, or is this also contributing to the lack of light getting out?  And is it possible to clean the thing?

After a year of messing around, I think this car, which is the best one I've owned, runs like a dream, tidy as anything, 93k on the clock, timing belt done, will have to be sold because it can't be driven in the dark.  Not happy.

12 hours ago, ovy27 said:

A question I have though, should the internal light lens be cloudy? 

No !!

12 hours ago, ovy27 said:

Are they like this when new,

No !!

12 hours ago, ovy27 said:

is this also contributing to the lack of light getting out? 

Yes 🙁

12 hours ago, ovy27 said:

And is it possible to clean the thing?

No, not really

Thanks buddy.  Looks like my car is on the skids then, as there are no replacement lights for this car that don't cost 1200 each.

It's threads like this that put a real smile on my face. Replacement full headlight unit was £22 (inc P&P) Coupled with an (illegal) LED bulb, I'm very happy with my nighttime setup...