Injectors DAD info Leak off Let's talk about mine

So I have a 2003 om612 3500 cargo. I have no reason to believe my injectors aren't original.
The test was performed with a brand new fuel filter (after priming and driving a day to clear any air) and I have very recently replaced the fuel rail pressure o-rings and did unplug my CPS, pinch the return, crank for 10 sec, and did the test on a hot engine.

I have 222222 miles and get right around 21mpg (last tank was 22.8!!) anyway I just recently did an injector leak off test and found borderline results. The pictures show about 1-1/4" light in every tube, I actually have a ml syringe so to avoid spilling diesel I removed all the fuel and measured roughly 2ml or less in all of them as well.

Also, I have my DAD results from maybe 1.5 years ago showing correction values.
I will add that I got a GDE tune but removed it after a few weeks as my mileage went down significantly; The van ran great with lots of more power and more useable power but I got it for mpg so I uninstalled it and sent it back. I always suspected maybe it was because of my injector health but I couldn't afford to go throwing parts at it...


My questions are should I replace all of them?? Did anyone else just bite the bullet and put in 5 remanufactured injectors at once? Is there a way to save any cash and still get certified Bosch shop to rebuild them? Lastly, did your mileage go up afterward?

I have read all the replacement threads and don't believe I need pointers on the process. Just the decision to replace them.

Re: Injectors, Let's talk about mine.....

Great questions. Great photos. This should be a sticky. So much useful information and photos to go along.
Ah, where to start?
My rule of thumb is anything .5+/- over zero on the ease correction test is suspect. So injectors #1 And #2 are clearly concerning.
Your "compression test" is showing that, for some reason #3 has less compression than the rest. Iirc, anything +/-7 rpms is worthy of a second test to make sure the results are consistent. It's not concerning at this point, but it's good to make a note of it for the future.
Your leak off tests show that all of them are getting to the end of their lives as far as leak off goes. This is particularly important for your engine/ecu combo. When one of your injectors finally goes south or even starts leaking off more than it is now, your ECU will shut your engine down immediately. You are already so close to the edge that it won't take much to drop your fuel pressure enough to upset the ECU. For that reason alone, I would replace all 5. #1 and #2 for sure, but the others aren't too far behind and it's easier to do it all at once.
DON'T BUY REMANUFACTURED INJECTORS FROM ANYONE OTHER THAN EUROPARTS. My customers have (understandably) wanted to save some $ and buy from other vendors (eBay, etc). 50% of the time this has lead to headache and "wallet-ache". Brand New, original oem injectors or rebuilt from Europarts SD are the only ones that have not had to come out again!

Well, thanks for the praise and the experience!

It is my understanding that on the OM612 in addition to the one injector down = no GO GO, that the new injectors don't need to be programmed. Is that correct?


This is an additional picture from the same session around 1.3 years ago ??

Come to think of it, I had a customer just last week who bought 2 injectors off eBay. 6 months later, one of them went South. Why one and not both? Low quality remanufacturing. He (and I) are watching the other one with a suspicious eye. Of course, it's going to go out when he's in the middle of a job, but he hates the idea of spending the money to replace it, in case it doesn't die. The anxiety is a bit too much for me. If it were my van, I'd be calling Europarts today, but different people have different tolerances for risk and different pocketbooks.

The injectors are not supposed to be coded for your engine.

Oh good, well hopefully an easy swap out then.... (fingers crossed)

I did just recently order a Carsoft MB V12 system so, I am going to wait for it to arrive before I order the injectors. I want to see what my correction values are ATM before replacing. I also called the PO to try to get service records but didn't get the call back after they checked long-term storage....

I bought 5 remanufactured injectors from europartsSD. very happy with them, so far so good as they say. no problems installing WELL other than missing the notch on a fuel return fitting and spraying some diesel that I had to clean up.

My old injectors were replaced as preventative maint, they all were borderline fail the overflow test.


But none were giving any codes or misfires, and performance was still good, I was seeing some light hazing at night, in headlights, under acceleration.

Now that is gone, the throttle seems slightly more responsive but not much difference... Turns out it seemed #1, #2 had both been swapped at some point, they had lots of antisieze on them and both had a handwritten number on the plug. Not the cylinder they were in either! anyway worth the cost I guess to avoid a headache.