Who has seen +300,000 miles on PD injectors?

[tgray]

I ended up rebuilding an 05 BEW Golf. What can I say to a mint looking Golf with all the parts it needed in my shop. It has 270,000 on the clock that seems correct. The engine after the full rebuild (everything but the injectors), starts quick, runs very smooth and strong with no smoke. I have searched the forums and most brag they have 250,000 miles on their injectors. I can't find much info on these engines past the 300,000 mark. There is lots of stuff on the ALH running with that kind of miles on original injectors but what about the PD engines with the unit injectors?
I have no way to know the history of the car but looking at the rest of what I see on the car I am surprised if they did anything but drive it until they blew out the rod from a cracked oil pan. This one was so bad it blew out the bellhousing as well.
So my question is what has anyone seen on your own car or others that have crossed the 300,000+ range on the PD engines concerning injector replacement or failures or wear? These injectors seem to run longer than the ALH ones before nozzles are replaced. Is there a time or symptom that would indicate it is time to deal with the injectors?

 

[zslnk]

I have 640k / 400m on a BEW.
3 / 4 injectors are original
Stanadyne every tank since new
Various fuel sources

The one that died started to misfire and had a VCDS fault after a few years of intermittent missing under a specific load condition. My dealer replaced it with a good used injector he had collected.
The car runs well.

 

[mittzlepick]

Replaced mine at 350 after they caused misfire code

 

[tgray]

Good info. These engines are amazing. My wife drives an 05 Golf I bought with 15,000 and now it has 215,000 and all I ever touched on the engine was the timing belt, water pump and alternator pulley. I guess it is good for another 200,000

 

[oilhammer]

PD injectors typically are not a high failure item. I see plenty with over 300k miles on them. Oddly enough, though, I have a BEW I got from a customer who did not want to fix it with a bad one at just shy of 200k. It has not been well maintained. Fine when cold, but as soon as some heat builds up in the engine it drops a cylinder and sets a DTC.

 

[PakProtector]

My '04 runs quite well, and has 150k on the clock now. What I don't want is a failure to wreck something else( like a dribbling injector white-washing a cylinder ). There also seems to be a possible fail point with an injector body wiggling in its bore. That can't be good for sealing it up...the lower O-rings seem to have experienced some wear along with this effect.
cheers,
Douglas

 

[Tdijarhead]

I have 403k mile on my 05 around 370 on the injectors and engine in it right now.

 

[DonL]

My BEW just turned over 300,000 last week. Engine runs great. I need to get it to the guru for the timing belt, etc. change.

 

[sriracha]

My 05 BEW PD has 190,000 miles and currently runs great.

 

[tgray]

When I worked on unit injector Cummins powered truck diesels back in the 70's we would send the injectors out around the 500,000 mark for them to be rebuilt whether they needed it or not. I remember asking the boss why he sent them out and he just said that was what someone told him but the trucks still ran fine I thought. Maybe they would have lasted a million miles. If I remember right they would once in a while have one go bad but most of the time they ran fine. They seemed similar to the PD injectors except I would torque them to 5 inch pounds instead of backing them off 180 and instead of electronic control they used a tandem manual pump that looked like the old manual VE with fuel lines Of course back then the diesel had more sulfur in it and maybe made things last longer.
Thanks all for your feedback on your experience.

 

[TDI_FNG]

360K on my original injectors. 2 cam replacements. Timing belts done by local guru. Still pulls hard between 2k-3k rpm in every gear but 5th (.658 5th gear).

Hoping to get at least 500k before I have to visit injector replacement.