Drop the pan @ 30K?

Having my indy do the 30K mile service before the APR tune this week and when I asked about inspecting the oil filter he said he would, but the only way to really check for signs of imminent danger (my words) is to drop the pan. He said most metal shavings would be too heavy to get sucked up into the filter and would be in the pan. I suppose it is $85 well spent. Thoughts? Anyone else have this done?

I removed the oil pan in my 986S to install the Brey-Krause deep sump oil pan kit and for a mechanic with a lift it should be an easy job. Although you might be able to get a decent indication by just draining the oil and filtering it as it drains out. I presume most particles would get drained out with the oil and not necessarily remain in the pan.

send some oil to black mountain for analysis

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There is a risk of a false positive. Not uncommon to drop the pan on an engine with many many miles and years on it and in rather good health still and to come upon rather large and nasty looking metal debris in the pan that has been there since day one. A new engine shed lots of metal debris. Some small, some not so small. The small to "intermediate" pieces get run the oil pump and end up in teh filter or in the filter housing oil. Larger pieces of the "intermediate" grade run out with the oil as it being drained, and some, the larger pieces, remain in place forever and ever. If engine has been well taken care of and is showing no signs of distress and filter housing oil when poured out into a clean drain pan and examined in a bright light shows no metal debris, or plastic which can be camchain guide/tensioner rail material, or even rubber which can be the anti-surge baffles in the sump falling apart -- which should be addressed with the pan being dropped and these replaced -- or even the first signs of the IMS bearing's seal or even its bearing cage/separator, I'd say save the money for something else. Like more frequent oil changes! Of course not a guarantee that nothing will turn up but had I subjected my 02 Boxster to 30K pan drops I'd have nearly 8 of these receipts to show with over 226K miles on the engine and still running just fine. Sincerely, Macster.

Thanks Macster. I have to admit I'm a bit timid from reading so many of the engine failure posts here. The car is 10 years old and is just now turning 30K miles. Previous owner (Rennline) did thorough annual maintenance. Car runs great and I have no physical evidence to be concerned about. I'm just feeling a bit silly doing mods when there's that fear of IMS failure. Yes, I've been sucked in to the IMS scare tactics. Just seems for such a small percentage of failures there's a high percentage of threads about it, but then again this is where people come running when they have problems. I bought the car because I'm a car nut and enthusiast...I don't have $15K sitting around just in case of an engine failure. It seems like the people that say the IMS/eng failure is overstated are the same people that tell perspective owners inquiring on this board that these cars have low price tags and high maintenance costs and, oh yeah, you better have $15K on standby for when the engine blows.

Drop the pan and upgrade it with the X51 pan.... it has a more robust baffling and holds more oil at the pick up.

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ive done that with my motors on many occasions. much easier and a better analysis than dropping the pan

I'm not familiar with Black Mountain or the services they perform.

Blackstone If you are dropping it anyway, I'd go with the X51 pan, like the BK

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No one knows if the IMS failure rate overstated or not cause no one knows the failure rate. All the numbers obtained by online polls, etc, is just so much noise. (My car has never suffered an IMS problem and I only once in a while participate in an online poll and as time goes on have not participated in any recent ones. Plus I know of several cars that have IMS failures -- listened to one the other day at a Porsche dealership -- and my research at various online forums never turned up anyone posting anything about these failures. So not everyone who's car suffers some catastrophic failure runs to a Boxster forum and reports it.) There is no doubt the IMS bearing or something in that area fails and fails too often in my opinion. My opinion is that if one can remember hearing/reading about the last failure when a new failure turns up the failure rate is too high. I would like it better when someone posted a story about an IMS failure everyone would think something along the lines of: "Gee, that's rare. I can't remember that last time this was reported here." If the pan drop gives you peace of mind then do it. Just be careful about making some quick decision about what is found. I'm sure not going to happen at the shop you're using but my experience at other places is more than once I've had a tech -- not a Porsche tech though -- come up to me after draining the transmission fluid from a manual transmission car that I know is running ok and showing me metal debris that came out and suggesting the metal debris presence implies imminent failure of the transmission and a rebuild or replacement is called for. While metal debris in engine sump is common, it is almost a given in a manual transmission some metal debris will be at the bottom of the transmission fluid basin. And some debris will likely be carried along with the fluid. My reply is to thank the tech for the info and just fill the tranny with oil and I'll drive it until it becomes clearer the transmission requires attention and if it does I'll certainly bring it back to this shop for whatever it requires. So far no transmission problems have developed. Sincerely, Macster.

Indy did the 30K mile service today, dropped the pan and gave her a clean bill of health. Said the car was pristine.