When to replace nozzle?  

When to replace nozzle?

Hey folks, I have never replaced the original 0.4mm nozzle that came with my mini. I was recently having significant issues with stringing and bad extrusion. (It was worse with white filaments, especially white PETG, but that seems to be common) so I tried out my other filaments and though they were not as bad, they weren't as good as they used to be. I addressed these issues first by drying my filament in a dryer (multiple times!) and that seemed to help.

Then I decided maybe I should swap in a new nozzle since I've not replaced mine over several years. My printer stats say I've run 3.7 km of filament through the printer (and its single nozzle) for 37 days of print time. I figured I would print a benchy with the old nozzle, then with the new, to compare the results.

Problem was... The old benchy looks pretty good to me. I'm not sure I need to replace this nozzle, or that I'd see any improvement. I only print PLA and PETG, the coarsest thing maybe a single roll of glow-in-the dark filament.

These were printed with the most basic settings, straight from the benchy file, using Microcenter's Inland (eSun?) filament, which is OK filament in my experience (not great, but OK).

Anyone think there's a case for changing out the nozzle that ran these?