Hello, Here is my filter from a few months back. My 2003 996 C2 Tip. with 19,600 miles.... In the filter are these flakes of a very thin metalic film. They stick to a magnet and are soft and flexible to the touch. It looks likes electroplating is coming off something. There are no hard chunks...just these flakes. Is the the warning sign of the IMS bearing? Need your input...

 

Not sure, but a pic of your LOW mileage Porsche will help us identify it better.

 

Could it be flakes from the drain plug itself? That's some pretty soft metal that gets torqued down pretty tight.

I would change the filter, drive it or even just run the engine for a while and then pull the filter again. IN fact you said this is the filter from a few months back?

Why not take the 30 minutes to jack the car, pull the current filter and look at it. You can do this without draining the oil. If you see more flakes it's a good reason to have a professional look at it, possibly drain the oil into a shallow pan to look for more flakes, or pull the oil pan to see if there is some larger debris in there.

IIRC the pics I've seen of IMSB failure have MUCH MUCH more metal than that and much finer particles ... unless you are somehow unbelievably lucky enough to have caught it at the onset.

Yeah pics of the car or else!

 

What logray said.

I'd add that with just 19.2K miles the engine is still 'pretty new' and the metal could just be some normal metal shedding going on or the pieces could have come from a metal piece that was in the oil sump or engine from new and only recently got dislodged and went through the high presure oil pump which would flatten the metal piece out to foil-like thinness and make some flakes from one piece.

I don't see anything really scary.

Drop the oil filter housing and pour the oil into a *clean* drain pan along with the filter and look again.

Sincerely,

Macster.

 

Changed the oil on my Turbo a couple of weeks ago at 17k miles, cut the filter saw nothing, I looked really hard deep in the folds. I build hot rod motorcycle motors for a living in my line of work and have for 40 years so I was truly interested to see what I could find if anything.

 

Stock drain plug is aluminum, so non-magnetic.

Whilst I'm not a mechanical guru, I suggest removing the oil sump pan, inspect and clean it completely and reinstall along with new oil filter. Drive for a while and drop the filter (you'll lose maybe a quart of oil or less when doing this), tear apart and reinspect. What you may have is just "new engine" debris.

 

+1 Probably not a bad idea. That fact that the particles stick to a magnet would be of concern to me. Could this be ball bearing material? Maybe, but I would think you would see more of it and some black plastic bits as well.

 

Is the side we are looking at the inside or outside of the filter? I cut mine open this week. There were small chunks of black black, and no metal, on the outside, not inside portion. I was not sure if cutting the plastic filter top to open it may have dispersed some plastic in that manner. I would think the inside would be where the engine particles would trap.

 

Uh.....new engines don't shed flakes of metal. Something is coming apart. I would be dropping the pan first, then likely pulling the trans to check the IMS bearing.....especially with that low mileage.

 

This is my fear... With my Tiptronic tranny, we are talkin serious $$$ just to look at the IMSB. Cut my current filter with 1k miles on it yesturday. It shows a few flakes here and there. About 1/3 of my posted pictures above. Does any internal part have electroplating? Also, if I get my hands on a Durametric... what values would be worth keeping an eye on? Jake Raby is not about to give this up.... Just send me an IMS Guardian already.

 

An engine should never be shedding metal flakes. Not at 500 miles or 19K miles. Something is wrong. If it were me, I would stop running the engine and go forward with the IMS retrofit. More than likely you will find the bearing about to completely fail. If not, you have made a small investment in protecting your engine for the future. (You will still need to find your problem however).

 

Exactly.......at 19k miles on an almost 10 year old 996, you do the IMS bearing upgrade no matter what. Worst thing that can be done to these cars is to not drive them on a regular basis. They just can't be garage queens.

 

Oh yes they do. An engine can shed metal at anytime and especially from new but over time (if the engine is healthy and most are) the amount of metal shed will diminish to almost nothing.

However, if the engine is opened up this increases the chances it will resume shedding some metal though this will be brief (unless the engine was extensively gone through).

Now in the case of the Porsche engines most likely the metal shed will be aluminum since the vast majority of the interior surface of the engine is aluminum.

A piece (loose bit of casting flash) of alum. can drop off -- dislodged by the violence of the oil being thrown about in the engine -- and unless it gets hung up somewhere it will make its way into the sump and then through the pump and during this time it will be smashed into a thin flake and likely broken upon into several smaller yet very thin flakes of metal.

Less likely but a piece of iron/steel can come loose. This can be from a some swarf (from the machining of the engine parts) or a piece of loose metal on one of the steel/iron parts in the engine.

Another material that can show up is some composite plastic material which comes from one of the chain tensioner/guide rails.

Also, the sump can contain some debris/trash that got there from very early in the engine's life, in fact its first start and first time run. Now most of the time this debris/trash stays on the bottom of the sump but under some conditions a piece can get inhaled by the oil pump pickup and of course then it goes through the oil pump and then is directed to the filter. The metal can lodge in the filter or in some case when the engine is shut off and the oil back flows some this can flush some of the metal particles stopped by the filter into the filter housing oil.

Sincerely,

Macster.

 

The IMS ***** are not plated and will not shed Flakes... The shield might produce some flakes... BUT will not be that thin. I would do a complete oil flush/change with new filter and in a few weeks pull the filter again to check it. (You can do this w/o doing a complete oil change) If you find more then start considering taking it to the Local shop for a more extensive inspection. Better to be safe then sorry!

 

Good catch though someone mentioned if it sticks to a magnet means it's not aluminum!!!