Tens, maybe even hundreds of 1000’s people. Globally probably millions. Not really sure what your point is here??
Any engine can wear out. However there is a huge cost in rebuilding one. Fine if you have the money to throw at it. But I suspect this isn’t true for many and especially for people owning old Land Rovers of this nature.
The Tdi is also known as a robust engine. There was a thread recently about rebuilds and more than one person posted saying they wished they hadn’t bothered. As when they stripped it down. It really wasn’t worn at all. Even with over 200,000 miles on them.
And lastly, rebuilding blindly you have no idea how it runs. And rebuilding in situ doesn’t really make it any harder. Or even pulling it out will only take a fraction of the time you’ll need for a rebuild. And this way you can access how it runs first.
One more thing. Lots of rebuilds end up in engine failures. Each time you take something apart you have risk of something going wrong. Of course this shouldn’t happen. But can and does.
Seen that happen a few times, engine running away as mech forgot to drain oil from intercooler after turbo change which resulted in a totally blown engine so got a little expensive!
Another favourite was liner height not set so had to be rebuilt again, that happened more than once.
People snapping head bolts, people snapping taps in the block whilst cleaning out threads.
New rocker gasket left in the air filter, which then got sucked into the turbo think that cost 2.5k to fix
Motors sent out afetr major service with no oil in the diff
Trucks left idling after an oil change until they heat siezed as the mech had forgotten to put the new oil in!
Sump bung dropping out a few miles after service as he forgot to tighten it, unsurprisiingly that totally shagged the engine.
The list is literally endless and none were cheap to fix, best of all none were done by me.
I was told many moons ago the most dangerous time for any vehicle is right after its been serviced as thats when any cock ups will show up and result in a break down.