I thought I’d add that it looks like it’s overextruded. So much that the filament is being “pushed” out and curling back around the nozzle.
It could be the e steps, flow rate, etc but it could also be that your Z offset needs to be adjusted back away a smidge.
That could be part of the inconsistent print since the tool head movement over one section of the bed vs another may be affected by the layer below based on how the filament curled there.
If you want to do a deep dive into adjusting/calibrating the Ender I did write up a bit here (although that post does relate to Klipper and I mention settings/adjustments for Klipper it starts purely with the physical printer itself and builds on it)