Metal in Oil Change (30k miles, 2022)

Somewhat new to car maintenance but I know I’m not supposed to see anything in my oil. Truck has about 30k miles on it and oils been changed every 10k miles. I was unable to get the filter off (thanks to whatever tech tightened it with the fury of god last)

how bad is this?

 

shouldn't be

you should know exactly who tightened it last because that person should be you

don't know. That's not how it's examined.

 

Is it metal or aluminum . Does it stick to the magnet? If it sticks, not good. ( if aluminum, might have just been leftover aluminum from manufacture. Either way it doesn’t look good . You may send a sample to have it analyzed . Question is did the tech even changed the oil filter or just drained and refilled the oil. That metal shaving has to come from somewhere .

 

Agree.

Usually, you might see a light metallic shimmer, particles so small you can’t really feel them. That would be from normal wear.

Those larger curly bits look like chips / debris from the original manufacturing process. Odd that they would still be there after previous oil changes.

Get a filter wrench and drain adapter, and get that filter changed. Let us see what is in the filter housing.

 

are you certain those particles were in the oil and not pieces of plastic from the pan? that curly piece looks like black plastic.

 

if you work at Toyota as a tech you would drain oil to examine in a coffee cup and take pictures to send HQ where they know if it’s normal or not, assuming it’s particles and not large chunks.
Magnet to check steel or aluminum and knowing what the engine is made out of in what parts doesn’t really tell you if it’s a normal amount of wear or not.

but any initial wear particles are typically isolated to the first 5k oil change and less afterwards.

There’s either a noticeable engine issue or there isn’t.
Particles are not always a giveaway. Usually it’s the other way around. There is an engine issue first, so oil is inspected for particles afterward to narrow it down and confirm.

or you run the engine a bit with oil, turn it off, then inspect oil in the filter area before it has a chance to disappear.
Particles settle in certain areas. Like bottom of the pan or filter. Vacuuming from the dipstick may not reach those areas.

or, to prevent issues, assuming nothing defective from factory (it happens and is unavoidable, that’s why warranty exists) you change the oil yourself with synthetic every 5k. For free in a parking lot with cheap basic tools.

or to garuntee creating issues, have someone else do it every 10k

there are various oil analysis companies
Like Blackstone
magnet doesn’t give the full picture.

borescope is a non invasive inspection but doesn’t give a full picture in the natural darkness looking inside an engine with a camera.

if it was an out of warranty older vehicle it would be pretty easy to take off the oil pan and valve covers to get a better look at internals with the naked eye in light.

factory defects show themselves quickly.
Like excessive particles and rod knock.

or if there’s no issues, taking it to someone else for 10k OCI will create them. Among other things like ignoring break in procedure, etc. and can void warranty.

 

THIS!

 

10k oil changes are 5k too many. Especially with 0w-20