Hey all,

Been lurking for a while, I'm sorry I hadn't introduced myself yet. I've had my S for about a month now and its an amazing car. I really enjoy it, and wish I didn't have to make this post, but its concerning.

I did my first oil change this weekend, and when pouring the oil from the pan for disposal noticed it had a metallic sheen to it. There appeared to be some copper and silver flecks in the remainder of the fluid in the pan as well. Its possible those were from something else as I didn't think to thoroughly clean the pan, so I'm trying not to freak out too much. (The last thing I used it for was a trans fluid change on another car, so some could be from that.)

I cleaned the drain pan, and removed the new filter to look at some of the new oil after running for a while. In the pan appeared to be more silver and copper flecks. However, I took some of the oil and sloshed it around a clean, transparent shotglass, looking at it through a light. There wasn't anything metallic seen when doing that, so again, maybe theres junk embedded in my plastic oil pan.

There isn't a knock that I can tell, there is what sounds like valve noise when I listened underneath the car, but it goes away on higher RPM. I haven't driven it much since the oil change. The last oil change was done at a honda dealer, so I'm not sure what type of oil was used. I replaced it with Amsoil 10W30 and used the appropriate Honda filter.

I'm going to check the VTEC solenoid ports once I get a replacement gasket, but would like to know what else should be checked before I drive it normally again.

Thanks

 

I would take a sample of your oil and ship it to blackstone labs and see what the results say. Relatively inexpensive to do and provides a lot of information. Good luck!

 

Any metal flakes in your oil is never a good sign. Copper is generally bearing material, but as suggested, take a sample and send it off for peace of mind

 

If you still have the old oil filter I'd cut it open and look the the filter media. The oil filter will tell you if you have a problem because it catches most crap in the oil, especially the big particles. The oil flows from the outside to the inside so when you look at the media just look at the outside pleats.

If you find a few flakes its ok(I have 137k miles on my S and still find a few) you just don't want to find it covered in flakes. I would be worried if my filter had more than 15 to 20 larger flakes and that is with 7500 miles on the oil with 15k miles on the filter. If you don't know what a oil filter looks like on the inside here are some pic's I took of three filters off of three S's
Oil Filters by Rod Rounds Photobucket

ROD

 

Cutting the filter open is a good point, I'll see if I can get it out of the trash and figure out a way to open it.

 

blackstone labs.

 

One uses a filter cutter. If you try to use a saw you will get hacksaw filings from the canister into the filter. The filter cutter works like a pipe cutter.

 

 

Hopefully needless to say, the oil sample to send to lab would be from the car, not from your potentially contaminated drain catch pan.

 

Thanks, I'll give that a shot.

Of course, I have ordered some blackstone kits to send it off on the next oil change.