High metals content in oil analysis

M96 engine with 128k miles, I did an oil analysis and several metals are high. From internet research I'm finding that copper and iron means rod and main bearings. As does lead. What do you folks think? Raby posted: The ONLY copper within these engines is the dermis layer of the rod and main bearings. Another person posted that if it was the IMS bearing "then chromium or manganese would be up too". There's one catch to all this: I sampled the oil from the top after it had already emptied into a pan that was dirty from sitting around in a garage. Any chance that it would effect all these numbers? Or do all the numbers corroborate each other pretty well if internal damage on an M96 engine was happening?

That sample is not valid. When the oil splashes in the pan It gets mixed with all kinds of crap. Off the top is still contaminated. If it were me, I’d fill it with oil, run it for 500-1000 miles and take another sample. If those are valid numbers, then it’s time to get ready for a rebuild.

First clue something is amiss would be the amount of make up oil added 😳

I agree with the above. One question: did you actually go two years between oil changes...twice?

Who did the UOA, and Did they not provide instructions on how to get a proper sample?

The oil consumption was due to a faulty AOS. I don't do UOA every oil change so no I didn't go years between oil changes. I forgot to sample the oil as it came out of the vehicle. It was Blackstone, I have about 400 miles since the oil change so I'm asking them if that's enough mileage for new data.

A combination of clues are copper. silicon and aluminum. That would lead me to believe its an issue with rod bearing wear, allowing small amounts of cylinder play resulting in cylinder wear/bore score or vice versa, cylinder wear is allowing the piston to load laterally and put pressure on the rod bearing. Either way, I hate to say it, but its not good. You could have some contamination from the exposed pan, but I'm betting that would show up in the insolubles (dust, dirt, etc.). If you've replaced the AOS I'll be curious if it really solves the oil consumption problem. At the very least, i'd consider pulling the plugs, see if 5 and 6 are dirtier than the rest. Pick up a cheap borescope and see what you can see from the top of they cylinders. Good luck. Just curious what model year car do you have?

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Yeah I don't think the dirty pan is influencing the numbers too much. The exact same metals from the engine made into my sample? Plus it was a deep pan and I took from the top layer. And I did it once this way many years ago without abnormal results. I'm only ~450 miles from the AOS and oil change and it looks like it's still consuming oil beyond accepted consumption levels so it may not have been the AOS. I've also had the oil light flash a couple times when hitting the bump on my driveway - it's never done that before but I thought it was because I put too much oil it (it was at the VERY top of the red dipstick). I've put a few more miles on it and will be sending in another sample. It's actually a 2000 Boxster S but I posted here for more feedback since it's the same engine. The next question would be how long can I drive this before the engine "explodes" if I don't want to fix it.

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Only you can answer this after it happens...Keep us posted!

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You are punishing the engine every time you start it, soon it will punish you for this.The sooner you stop, more parts will be reusable. When a connecting rod is no longer connected, it & you will be sad.

All the numbers are bad from the prior tests.. Just not as bad as the latest ones. Always perform a mid- stream sample, never collect oil from the pan- take it straight from the sump. Anything else does not work. Now, that being said, I don't put all my stock in wear metals. I tend to look at the anti- wear package retention. I can tell by this data that we don't have the full story here. You have changed oil type/ brand/ etc from 2018, till now. This is clearly shown in the anti- wear package retention from prior samples, till now. The prior averages look like Mobil 1, but the most recent I can't determine, except there's no way that its the same oil as you had before. I have an idea of what this latest oil is, but with all the wear debris, its hard to say, as the mechanical wear will impact the anti- wear package, since it is eaten by being over- worked. The only people who only grade oil by wear metals, are the ones that don't know what they are looking at, and have yet to see an engine wear/ fail that had "perfectly good" wear metals. Watch this video to have your eyes opened: You Tube It is an Aircooled engine, but from the UOA perspective this makes zero difference. Now, that being said, you think you can go two years, and 20,000 miles on an oil service? Thats what the data suggests for the most recent services. Horrible.

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You are correct - I did switch oil weights. But always Mobil1. The previous owner used 15w50 - I continued it for summer use but used 0w40 in the winters (but stopped switching in 2017). The 15w50 has much higher zinc and phosphorus numbers than the 0w40 so I wanted to keep using it. The video is very informative...thanks! Clearly I needed more data points plus a consistent oil weight use to set a better trend. Oh well. I don't do analysis every oil change. Always changed my oil every 5 or 6000 miles.

I figured that was the case. While you do have a stronger anti- wear package, some of the detergency properties take away the benefits. Whatever you are doing, isn’t working. The engine needs greatly reduced service intervals, but at this point it clearly has irreversible wear.

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Oil changes every 5-6000 miles. A little confused on what else could have been done for the engine internals? I didn't do an analysis every oil change. I sent a new sample off today with 458 miles on it - will see what is reported. Car is parked for now.

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Your high metals for bearing material could be coming from the "thrust bearing". It is very easy to get in the habit of using the clutch pedal to rest your left foot, and with frequent gear shifting and stop-n-go traffic, the thrust bearing can take a beating.. I have seen quite a few with high metals and even visible material in the filter and sump from the thrust bearing, while the main and rod bearings were OK.

The miles on the unit varied by 20,000 and two years between the 2018 UOA last UOA. You must have missed some UOA between those. I did notice the miles on the oil was around 6,000 on each, but unit miles were the variable. That said, even 6,000 miles was too much for this one, based on these values. Further, these indicate a 2 year service interval, and again, time is more important than miles- to me. Results show me that, just like I could tell the oil had changed, even though you did not mention it.

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We were posting at the same time! Yes, I agree on some of the wear metals possibly originating with the crank thrust shims. That would not explain the copper, though, as these are not copper laden. When I see copper, I think main and rod bearings, but since this is Blackstone, it could also be from worn valve guides. Testing for worn shims is easy, all you need is a dial indicator, and a pry bar to measure the crankshaft end float with the engine in the car. I go over the trust shim wear you mention in my most recent video from the IMS Bearing Failure series. I tried hard to go over these items so people that don't build engines could understand where the parts go, and what they do. You Tube Don't forget to watch at the end when I destroy all the parts we won't be reusing to build the R40 for the project 996. The the OP: 458 miles really shouldn't tell you much of anything. A sample with less than 1,000 miles is very poor, to say the least. It's not enough time for things to be indicative across the whole spectrum. I say that primarily because I look at wear metals LAST, not first.

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Interesting. I see how those work with Raby's video. But either way - that's still an internal fix. I have every single repair and maintenance item logged that has been done to this car for 20 years. I can assure you that zero oil services have been skipped. And it's a daily driver so 2 oil changes pretty much every year. The 458 miles definitely isn't ideal. But that's all I can do to verify that my first test wasn't tainted from bad sampling method....unless I just keep driving the vehicle. I'll see what the test says and just go from there. But I'll also try your prybar measurement test and report back...thank you!

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Why does the UOA trend data ship from 2018 to 2020 and roughly 20K miles during that period? I was asking if a UOA was skipped when the services were done. If not, lots of numbers don't add up. Based on the trend data, and the elements that have consistently been high, I'd say that the contamination wasn't a factor. With such low time on the 458 mile sample, the wear metals will likely appear to have dropped . This will be due to the limited service the oil has seen. If the numbers are still very high, then this would indicate a significant issue.

Well...looks like the metals are still there. Guess my engine definitely has some issues. (and yes I switched oil weights again, I wanted to see if the oil consumption would continue with 0w40)

Is this the pry-bar test method you are talking about? The thing did not move.

you need to get a magnetic base dial indicator set up and put the tip on the crank bolt, and then push the crank toward the transmission, zero out the dial indicator, and then pull out just like the picture but it doesn't take much pull, check how many thousandth movement you have. I don't have the allowable tolerance on hand right now.

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Ahh...makes sense. Don't have one of those...but I guess honestly it doesn't really matter at this point what is wrong internally - unless I'm going to do a full Raby-type rebuild then I'm not opening the engine.

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If the engine is burning oil in all 6 cylinders with no signs of bore scoring, good compression numbers, and it's not the AOS - would it be a reasonable conclusion to think the valve guides are one of the problems? Also to note the excessive oil consumption began after the AOS blew 40k miles ago (it went from 1 quart per 5k miles to 1+ quarts per 1k miles). I shut the engine down fairly quick but it still ran few a few seconds with all that massive oil entering the combustion chamber.