I suspect this may be a self-answering question but, my daily driver is a 2003 Fiat Punto 1.9 JTD and the destroyer-like smoke screen it emits under acceleration has been steadily worsening, and with an MOT looming the time has come to swap it. As far as I can tell (without having taken the hoses off to have a play with the shaft (oo-er ) it's the oil seals at the compressor end as the turbo-to-intercooler hose and the intercooler itself are coated inside with oil.
Here's the thing; I'm not going to buy as turbo rebuild kit from Ebay as I know the compressor/turbine wheel & shaft assembly needs to be balanced once rebuilt due to operating speeds, but money is rather tight these days and the cheapest option I've found so far is a repair which 'start from £175', so is it worth a punt on a scrappy or am I just wasting my time and money?
p.s. we can't afford to bin it and get another car at present, much as I'd like to

i'd buy off ebay. They often list as 'no play in shaft' etc, and if it arrives and is not fit for purpose, you can get a refund.

I've had a couple of ebay turbos, both were ok

I've used 4 or 5 scrapyard turbos over the years, I usually find a few cars with what I'm after then wiggle the shafts and get the one with least play. The last turbo I bought was £15, a TD04 from a volvo T4, it was an almost-new replacement. I suppost it depends on your scrapyard, the one I use will charge £10-15 for any turbo (bog standard, VNT or massive truck turbo) so at those prices it's worth a punt

i rebuilt mine with an ebay kit. just marked up the shaft and compressor wheels put it all back together and hey presto problem sorted. got another 40k out of the car before it got sold on, still functioning fine. that was a fiat 1.9jtd engine in a vauxhall. the worst bit is getting the bloody thing off the car on the vauxhall all the rads had to come out as the turbo housing and exhaust manifold are a single cast item.

i have rebuilt 4 turbos now, all lasted and functioned fine, all i can say is better than used/untested/unknown. not as good as a shiny brand new one with no wear whatsoever. the last one i did on a mates car was a used £50 ebay one with a bit of shaft play. with a £35 rebuild kit the play was sorted so £85 plus a gasket, and its been going 6months so far.

look at it this way. the turbo you have is virtually dead, throw £35-50 at it for a diy rebuild and you may save hundreds, if it doesn't work then your only £30-50 down.

Took apart a td04 turbo that I got for bearing inspection and to clean out any carbon/oil gunk from around the seals, just made sure I marked the shaft and compressor wheel and it's been fine since.