I have an 8 and a friend of the family has an 8. I help her out by doing all of her maintenance and car care. I give her car an oil change about every 2500 -3000 miles. I have noticed many differences in our cars such as parts variation, different clutch feel, and the fact that her oil gets a lot dirtier than mine in the same mileage. She does use second when she should use first sometimes. Like going up my driveway and coming off of a very slow roll. I know enough background.

I changed her oil last Sunday at about 16,500 miles and there was what I would consider larger than average shavings. I also pour a new qt down the filler to rinse out as much old oil I can. It was more like panning for gold than an oil change. I drove the car afterwards and still very solid with no feeling or hearing of anything abnormal.

So here is the question: What is acceptable amount and size of metal in oil?

 

Unless you're talking about the oil in the Diff or Tranny, I think she may be having an issue.

 

How big are the chunks, and are they just random bits or do they look like they were "part of something"? I'm paranoid about stuff like that because I had an old VW engine blow once shortly after I'd changed the oil and found pieces of metal. In that case it the debris had a definite shape - it was a piece of some sort of bushing so obviously a critical component was failing. Possibly in your case it could just be some metal flash from the castings? I'm just speculating. You might want to get an oil analysis the next time, which will give you better information as to whether there is any unusual wear going on. Several members have posted their used oil analysis results in the forum so there is a good basis for comparison.

 

It looked like aluminum. Most were just little tiny and glittery. Pretty random. There were three or four that looked like shavings from a medium file. Big enough to give you a sliver. How much oil do you need for an analysis. I have been keeping the filters from both our cars as a precaution for something. I could always try draining her last filter of the old oil or is there a process of sending the actual filter?

 

Tiny glittery pieces of metal are not a concern, but sliver-sized pieces certainly would concern me. Go to Blackstone.com to read about having your oil analysed. They will send you a couple of sample bottles along with instructions on how to collect the oil.

 

Cool. Thanks

 

Get a magnetic oil drain plug.

 

Aluminum is paramagnetic and and won't be able to be influenced to any degree by any magnet you would have on a drain plug - maybe enought to make them wiggle as they pass but certainly not enough to be captured. The magnetic oil drain plug will only be good for catching ferromagnetic material (i.e. iron, nickel, cobalt, steel).

 

Interesting, I change my own oil and never thought to run a brand new quart through the filler while draining the old oil. Will this really help to get a considerable amount of the leftover old oil out?

 

You'll be better off jacking up the front wheel of the side farthest away from the drain plug in order to get more used oil out of the pan. However, a considerable amount of oil sits in the oil lines, oil coolers and oil pump that no matter what you do only a portion can really be drained out.