Just curious about everyone’s life expectancy on the Hot End. I have used a .4 since I got it (3 weeks ago) and have been printing daily since then. When is a good time to start thinking about replacing that? Some prints aren’t doing well, so I’m unsure if it is the plate or the hot end.
Depends on the hotend you have. Is is hardned steel or regular? Did you print abrasive materials?
Do you see defects on your prints related to nozzle wear? I would not replace the nozzle until I see that.
I have been printing on my kickstarter X1C with the same nozzle since the beginning. Still going strong.
I will have to look and see which one it is. It just came with the print, so I believe it is hardened, but I will look.
I have printed abrasive materials (CF, Mixed filament, (not sure if it is, but) Pla+). They haven’t been great when I publish them, as they seem pretty weak and break easily.
A defect that I can think of that is related to the nozzle is the last print. It was a bit louder, a sound that sounded familiar to an older nozzle like it was just scraping the top of the print; the plastic hasn’t been holding well to the plate (though I’m thinking its the plate for this problem); I stuck one of those stainless steel needles in the hot end to clean out a problem that I thought was there, and I think I shaved some of the steel off of it…; and the nozzle has been close to the plate before the print for some reason that it has rubbed off the texture of the plate.
I can send pictures if need be.
A couple of things to ease your mind and possibly help your prints
#1 it is normal to have some material on the build plate scrape off during the nozzle cleaning sequence, not a big deal
#2 you likely have the hardened steel nozzle, a good indicator is the color of the heatsink
Black is hardened, silver is stainless
#3 bump up your print temp by + 5-10° , as for the build plate if its the cool plate put some Bambu glue or alternatively some people use hairspray
Personally I use Elmers purple washable glue stick, it stick very good and washes off the build plate or print very easily (plus it goes purple when it’s wet so you can see where it needs to be washed off)
#4 before any of that (I listed these backwards, maybe its because I’m left handed lol) Do a cold pull, preferably with regular white pla but any normal pla will work
The Bambu Wiki page will describe the procedure
For the record I’ve got over 2600 hours on my X1C, and have had incredible success with the inevitable print failures 
Hopefully some of these tips help you, remember that sometimes we tend to over complicate simple issues so start with the basics rather than jumping into the bigger possibilities
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And I highly suggest Gyroid infill as your default instead of Grid
12% gyroid with an infill wall overlap at +5 or as low as -5 depending on how many walls you are printing
I set my infill anchor at 0 (simple connect) by default as well