Help needed with 2005 Mini Cooper R53 headlights luminocity.
Hello, I am extremely happy to find this community. I have spent countless hours on this subject without any realistic solution other than the typical (but inefficient) proposals of sanding and coating the headlights.
I bought an old mini cooper 2005 which was at slightly bad condition planning to restore it. The car was without license plates and in order to be able to take license plates the car had to pass the technical inspection. I took the car to a mechanic who did his best to bring it up to technical inspection standards but as he said "you never know with this".
Anyway, the car failed the technical inspection on 3 "small" points. One of the three was "SIGNAL LIGHTING Low beam efficiency". According to my mechanic, the problem lies in the fact that the plastic cover of my lenses has been degraded through years of use and is too dim. My mechanic had already performed restoration to the lenses at 5 steps (unknown to me what exactly 5 steps) with remarkable results on how the lenses looked but as he says, there is nothing more to be done because the problem is structural. From the time I spent on this subject what I learned is that there are micro cracks which go all the way deep in the lense. These microcracks are defusing the light and even though it looks bright in the eye, it is not concentrated straight. My mechanic told me he performed a photometer test and the results was just 0.6flux with a passing limit of 12flux!
The problem is that the headlights are xenon and they have very advanced technology in them. And even though the problem is isolated just on the lenses, it is impossible to find only the lenses to change. The only way is to buy the whole headlight. Combined with the fact that it is an old car and it is not easy to find authentic parts, the cost of changing one headlight is 1000$. This bring total cost of changing 2000$ which is ridiculous for some lenses which are very slightly dim. I have attached pictures of the headlights so you can see their condition. At this point I am all out of ideas but I can not pay 2000$ just for 2 headlights.
I am writing here to find out if anyone has experience on this subject and any proposals even very short term ones. I live in Switzerland and the technical expectations here are draconian. In any other country the car would have passed the exams but since here they are performing the exams with a photometer it looks like it is a lost cause. I am open to any solution, even the ones that are going to destroy in the long term the headlights. What I want is to achieve the required result for couple of hours and pass the exam. If this means it is killing the headlight, I can switch later to second hand ones which I can acquire for a fraction of the price of the new ones.
I have attached pictures of the car and the headlights before and after the restoration.
Any feedback is greatly appreciated.
