A Tale of Two Injector Sets

[kryten]

As I have mentioned in the past I'm the oddball here with Volvo power. As for inherent built in design flaws in an engine Cummins seems to have the fuel pump, and Volvo has it's injectors. Back in the summer of 2015 the truck would start to vibrate badly if I called for more than 20 lbs of boost. Called a trusted shop foreman and he said injectors so I limped it a couple more days and he got me in. Did the tests and it was indeed injectors so Volvo bought me a 6 pack and life was good. He asked me how many times they had already been changed and he just about fell over when I told him they were the original set at 678000 km. He said he'd never heard of a set going that long and whatever I was doing to keep doing it.

For most of that 675000 km I had been adding about 1/2 bottle of Howes fuel treatment per fill year round. Shortly after replacing the injectors I installed a FASS fuel system and stopped with the Howes. I was hoping that with the FASS removing the air from the fuel the injectors would last longer just from that.

I have just got out of the shop after getting the injectors replaced again. The symptoms were not near as bad as the first time but I was in the city that has a shop I can actually trust. (They won Volvo/Macks best technician contest 2 years in a row for North America). This time the injectors lasted 345000 km with no fuel treatment. Is there a connection or is this just a coincidence? Not sure but I picked up a couple cases before leaving town.