Good afternoon all,

I've just had my 2014 Insignia fail its MOT due to "Position Lamp not working Nearside Front". They've not been able to say exactly why it's not working, but did mention that there had also been water inside the headlight. The rest of the lights in that assembly are working fine, from what they say.

The garage is saying the headlight assembly needs to replaced and has confirmed the specific headlight needed is, "1ZT 011 166-731". The garage can't source one and it appears to be out of stock everywhere that I've looked, with one company saying they're not expecting to see any more before February, if at all. The scrappers I've talked to locally haven't got anything. I've found some second hand ones online but they are mostly out of my budget for the next few months for unrelated reasons!

Does anyone know if this is something I, as a reasonably terrible DIY person with limited tools, would have any realistic chance of sorting out myself?

I've seen some places (a few on eBAY) advertising a repair service that is within budget. Does anyone have any experience with these? To be honest they have the feel of "bloke in a shed" rather than an actual repair shop - though I accept that a talented bloke in a shed can still do a grand job!

If it were me I would concentrate on getting the lamp working rather than replacing the headlamp - it may be due to water ingress which has caused corrosion but the headlamp didn't fail on beam deflection so the reflector must be okay.
The position lamp should be able to be replaced even if you had to run external wires to the bulb as an interim to get it working for the MOT test.

I've reached the same conclusion - though my limitation is that if I try to do that myself, I can guarantee (from many years of experience) that it will end up even more broken than before I started!

I've identified a company that says they can repair it and I'm going down that route now.

A vauxhall dealer did come back to me with a quote for the headlight assembly of £780, new, and in stock - which is a few hundred quid cheaper than any of the second hand ones I've seen! Still out of budget for the moment though, but at least there's another route if needed.

Thank you for the reply!