Bits of metal in my oil filter

I changed my oil/filter after approx. 2200 miles (one short season this year) and found little particles of metal in the filter. They are metal as a magnet will pick them up. I know my picture does not look so different from some of the others posted here but I thought I would add if for the sake of comparision. The car has 95K miles. Oil is Mobil 1 0W40 After reading other posts I was able to conclude that the metal is normal or it will blow any minute. I welcome any thoughts and since I have put the car in storage until next spring I will have pleany of time to consider options. Thanks,

I would be concerned about that much metal.....esp METAL metal.....If mine looked like that I would start looking for a smoking gun in hopes of a $2-5k repair and hopefully avoiding the $18-20k one sorry man, wish I wasn't such a doom and gloomer about it....

flatbed to dealer is what I'd do

Looks like a rodbearing material. Ask me how I know... It's higly suggested to find out where those flakes are coming. Take the oilpan off first and check if there is more metal.

Avoid 0W-40! Fat oil help old engines. 0W is for Winter use. OK?

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Absent any noises that signal low oil pressure, absent any knocking or other unusual noises, that few tiny bits of light metal (probably a tiny piece of aluminum that went through the high pressure oil pump which makes bigger (but very thin) flakes of aluminum) doesn't look particularly scary to me. Relax. When you take the car out of storage next spring just drive the car a bit -- 100 miles or less -- then remove the filter housing and dump the oil and filter into a clean drain pan and see what you see. What you see or don't see determines what you do next. Sincerely, Macster.

Macster - he said they are magnetic....aka ferrous

I don't think Aluminum is magnetic

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Sigh. My 02 Boxster just finished 5K miles with Mobil 1 0w-40 oil and didn't suffer any problems, new or excessive noises, oil consumption remained stable at a bit less than 1 quart in 5K miles. Oh, the engine I have to point out has nearly 247K miles on it. And I just had my Turbo's oil changed and used Mobil 1 0w-40 this time around. Mobil 1 5w-50 oil no longer stocked by the nearby Mobil oil distributor (I was told they do not sell enough of this oil to stock it) and because it is now special order and takes time to come in I opted to switch back to Mobil 1 0w-40 oil -- and the engine hasn't blown up. The Turbo has 76339 miles on it as of this AM when I filled the gas tank. Sincerely, Macster.

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Macster, You've not really done much to the Boxster engine correct? What I mean by that is has there been an IMS bearing replacement, variocam solenoid replacement, or the chain pads?

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The engine has not received any internal work save the passenger side VarioCam solenoid & actuator were replaced not too many months ago. Oh, at around 25K miles the RMS was replaced along with as was the standard operating procedure then (and might still be) the IMS end plate and its 3 bolts were replaced with upgraded parts. The old end plate had an o-ring for its seal while the new end plate had a 3-ribbed seal. The new bolts were micro-sealed to prevent oil from seeping past through the thread spaces and leaking out from under the bolt heads. Otherwise the engine, the IMS bearing, and all chain pads/tensioners (save the new rails that of course came with the new passenger side VarioCam actuator) are original. I might add the bad actuator's chain rail pads showed very little wear. The passenger side cams and the lifter tops showed no wear. There is some luck involved -- hard to say how much -- but I believe a bigger factor in my Boxster engine's long life is due to my very early on in the car's ownership opting to follow a 5K mile oil/filter service schedule. Sincerely, Macster.

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Thanks for the correction. Missed ferrous info. But if the metal bits are ferrous while the bits can't be aluminum they also can't be bearing (shell) material. The metal is still probably some tiny piece of ferrous metal that is nothing serious. Or it could be something serious: Putting my black hat on the metal could be from a chain (the rollers) which are starting to come apart. This would I believe result in considerable finer metal in the filter and the filter housing oil as the chain's bad rollers would start to eat away at the sprocket teeth along with the chain rail guide/tensioner composite plastic coverings. I would amend my advice in the earlier post to start the engine and let the engine idle until it is warm. Not fully up to temp, it won't get that hot just idling, but say let the engine idle 15 minutes or so. (15 minutes because I note from my data logging when I have a car in the dealer service department for oil servicing the techs let the engine idle around 15 minutes to get the oil hot enough to check the oil's level.) Anyhow, let the engine idle until warmed up and then check the filter oil and filter element again. I would add that while I do not think the metal is anything serious there's always the chance I'm wrong and as such I would advice caution. So, while the engine is idling the OP should be prepared to shut the engine off ASAP if the engine exhibits any signs of distress, any scary noises, new noises, odd noises, and so on. But what I said earlier still applies: What is found, or not found in the oil after doing this will determine the OP's next step. Or the OP could elect to have the car flatbedded to a dealer or indy shop and have the engine's condition assessed by a qualified professional. Not sure what this would involve. Oil pressure test I guess. A hookup to a PST2/PIWIS and have the VarioCam hardware confirmed to be working. A check of the engine's other vital signs to see if any signal the engine's not at 100%. A listen to the engine at various locations to listen for any still rather faint but significant noises. A check if possible for any signs of leaking around the RMS and IMS end plate. If the engine were mine I'd want some pretty good proof the engine was sick and in need of this kind of attention before I'd sign off on a partial or engine out teardown. Sincerely, Macster.

no worries Macster.... iu agree might be nothing but i think pulling the pan if you dont have a magnetic drain plug would be a nice piece of mind sanity check - and it really costs almost nothing to do...just some glue and oil (you can re-use your oil if you catch in clean basin)

This is one of the reasons I do Blackstone Used Oil Analysis. There had to be tell-tail signs of this many-many months ago and before stuff starts showing up in the oil filter.

Macster, when the bearing wear to the max, there is steel frame that starts to wear out. For my engine, there was no noises or low oilpressure before the bearing failed. Here is a picture of my main bearings and one rod bearing for rod bearing #5 I would take the oilpan off, easy job, takes about 1h to check what's going on inside. At this point, if there really is something wrong, OP could save lot's of money if the problem is found on time.

Maybe I am missing something here, but can't that be IMS bearing material? That should be ferrous. I guess you could have a look for oil leaking between trans and engine, which I believe is a sign that oil is seeping through the IMS bearing. But, lack of oil leak does not mean the IMS bearing is ok, as far as my knowledge goes. Johan

...Nothing to see here, move along folks...

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That's so encouraging to hear especially with all of the other stories out there on the 'net. So the moral of the story is, change your oil often and drive that car as much as possible!

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Hey dude, long time no chat...cya at CMP on the 29th?

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Unfortunately won't be running at that event but I might go see part of the club race. I'll also be at the autocross in Greensboro next Saturday and the next one back at Knight's Stadium early in November. Are you going to run on the track or watch the club races?

To the OP...please confirm the flecks are ferrous. I had similar looking flecks that I thought were being picked up by my magnet, but it was actually the "sticktion" from the oil coating them that was allowing my magnet to pick them up.

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he said that a magnet picked up the silver bits so it cannot be an alloy.

I have a somewhat similar situation - 2003 996 C4S. Went about 6700 miles until I changed the oil at ~89,000 miles. Put in a blend of Castrol Syntec - it had the highest ratings for API and ILSAC of any synthetic on the shelf - and I checked EVERY bottle. Since they did not have the 5W-40 that I wanted, I blended equal amounts of 0W-40 and 10W-50. As to the metal: I have 1 piece in the filter that is flattened 1.5 mm dia. and ~3 pcs that are maybe 0.3mm. In all maybe 4 or 5 little bits of metal after 6700 miles. I added a magnetic drain plug and feel good about driving the car, and will change the oil at 5000 miles going forward.

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+1,000,000

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Used oil analysis will not detect material this large... If you can visually see the material it won't show up at all. Trust me. I have learned this while developing the IMS Guardian system.. If you want to measure particle levels a test thats typically employed for Diesel engines has to be used. We received a factory engine in a crate and stripped it down without ever firing it up to build it into a fully optimized Grand Am race engine. It had this same material througout the internals; the used oil analysis didn't show any of the material elevations. The particulate evaluation did show these elevated levels and they were very high. I have pictures of the spankin' new internals covered with glittery oil. The Lubrizol labs carry out these analysis for us- they make the oil additive blend packages for our oil co-developed with Joe Gibbs Racing- its just a tad more extensive than dealing with a place like blackstone where they just carry out UOA.

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You're missing the point, Jake. I think with regular UOA's and history with several data points (more than 1 or 2 reports) you would see elevated wear metals in your reports before finding metal shavings in your filter(s).

I agree, but once the particles turn into chunks the particle test is required.

[QUOTE=Flat6 Innovations;8946731] We received a factory engine in a crate and stripped it down without ever firing it up to build it into a fully optimized Grand Am race engine. It had this same material througout the internals; the used oil analysis didn't show any of the material elevations. The particulate evaluation did show these elevated levels and they were very high. I have pictures of the spankin' new internals covered with glittery oil. QUOTE] Are you telling us that Porsche factory engines will shed metal bits for a while when new??

And is glittery ferrous?

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[quote=PILFILR;8950039] **Any** new engine will, hence first oil change once broken-in.

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****Hence the first oil change at about the 1,000 mile mark, about 1/2 way through the break-in period.

We perform 3 oil services on our engines in the first 2500 miles... The first one at 300 miles and just after the chassis dyno- using our break in oil.. The OE fill oil is good for a full oil service according to the MFR... Thats the oil thats shipped in the engine. I'll post some pics soon on my site that will open some eyes.

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Hello Jake, Since we have you here; I'm going to be going through this soon after LNE does the Nikasil case rework on my engine (in a month or so). Just so I get it right the first time. 1.) Fill with break in oil, break in engine according to break in procedures "before normal use". 2.) Drain break in oil, fill with synthetic, change at 300 miles. (Or would you recommend an LNE Brad Penn product, for example 20w50 versus Castrol 5w40) 3.) Fill will synthetic (I am going to use Syntec 5w40 or 10w40), change at 2500 miles. Thanks in advance! -Logray

You should refer to the LN process.. The only thing thats worse than a lack of information is totally conflicting information. I did the test work on the Nickies products in 2000 and shared the break in procedures with Charles as part of our collaborative relationship, but he has his own way of stating them. I have enough responsibility with our engines :-)

Understood and thank you!

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[quote=PILFILR;8950039] Hell yeah. Any new engine will for some time after entering service will shed metal and other trash (mostly sealant in the case of our Porsches). Even though this amount of material shed drops and can almost stop if the engine is opened up again it will resume some shedding. I wish I had now made the effort to photograph the contents of my Boxster's oil filter housing oil and filter element after its first oil change after having the engine opened up for a new passenger side VarioCam solenoid and actuator. I'm sure there would have been some trash in the engine oil and filter. I did take pics of the oil filter housing oil and filter element from my new 08 Cayman S after just 750 miles from new and the oil filter housing oil was filthy with metal debris, admittedly for the most part very tiny metal flakes. So much so the oil had a sheen from the 'metal flake'. The filter element was quite loaded with trash as well. But the engine was running just fine. I then drove the car until around 1400 miles and changed the oil/filter again. Just a tiny hint of metal in the oil. So tiny that it would not photograph. Then I at 2K miles (end of break in) I had the oil changed at the dealer and didn't even bother looking at the oil. The engine was running very strong and ready to roar. (Unfortunately, it never got a chance. A few days later the car was hit from the side by another car and totaled.) Sincerely, Macster.