This guy came off as I was wiping down my drain plug - not sure what it is - i.e., bearing material, paint chip from the drain plug, whatever - just not totally sure. It's not magnetic, so I'm not sure if that rules out bearing material or not, if it is bearing material.

side question - has ANYONE ever had something come out of their oil when doing a change, new or old?





I may just be being paranoid. Car has 650 miles on it now. Unfortunately, I don't have the rest of the oil to look, but there was nothing noticeable in it, and it was break in oil, so I didn't collect any to send to a UOA.... I should have.

 

For an overabundance of caution, you could drain a little oil, take a Blackstone sample, and put the contaminant it in the sample bottle. That's what we used to do on aircraft (I didn't see your lower caption(whoops!))

 

i totally would, but don't have the oil anymore =( i should have saved it

 

Are you sure it wasn't on your rag already?


Not an expert by any means but I'd think bearing material would react to a magnet. Plastic could be a guide (timing chain). Alloy would point me to a cast part.


A trip to the dealer to let them have a look could give you some answers....or not.


Sorry about this. I feel for you.

 

yeah it wasn't a rag, just a new paper towel. but yea it wasn't magnetic and it didn't stick to the drain plug, just came off the side or something as I was wiping it down. I'm not overly worried. I did a moderate break in, with some WOT to 4k to let the rings seat, only when the car's fully warmed up, etc., let it warm up properly, so I can't imagine that actual damage could have been done. Just strange. I'll def do a UOA when the next change comes

 

Well i can tell you its not part of your timing chain guides because the guides are white new and can be kinda red. Its possible that its a piece of gasket material from the valve cover or oil pan......it could also be a tab from the oil pump cover. My suggestion would be to bring the piece to your dealer and tell them it was in the oil. ask them to drain the oil and have a look at the bottom end through the oil plug hole and top from the filler cap. I guarantee you they wont actually look but if you have catastrophic failure down the road its good to have a record that you brought it to the dealers attention .

 

someone else on bitog speculated this:

 

while i was looking around in the valve cover, i saw this:



does this look normal? especially in person, it looks chipped. can anyone peek in their oil fill hole and see if it looks the same? i don't know if it's related or if something like that can even make it to the engine drain pan from there at that size... kind of want to tear down the entire engine now...

11/26/2013 this part has been resolved as normal.

 

this part is resolved as normal

 

Ill snap a picture of a n18 valve cover at work tomorrow and we can compare. I cant really tell from the picture and I dont know the inside of that cover well enough to guess.

 

thanks keep me posted. it might be different from mine (n16) but who knows. it is really hard to tell, in person it looks chipped. i know i'm just being totally paranoid and grasping at things now, i just wanna know if the car's gonna be sound or not.. planned on keeping it for quite some time

 

Here's is pic from a N18, slightly different.

 

gotcha - thanks for the pic. too hard to tell from there if the same bit looks "chipped" like it does in mine - can u tell when u shine a light on it?

 

Mine definitely does not looked chipped.

 

I assumed n18 since the mileage was so low. ill find an n14 valve cover

 

n16 is the base mini's engine, n18 is turbo

 

side question - has ANYONE ever had something come out of their oil when doing a change, new or old?

 

Do you mean like an alien or something?

 

yes

 

bump

 

There's a dcs bulletin about this. its an internal piece of the oil filter housing. Atleast the o ring is, never seen a piece of aluminum.

 

sorry the oring is just there for some size reference, it's not from the oil

 

Ah, my apologies.

 

no problem. on a separate note, what i thought to be a chip inside the engine is normal, i took a peak at a different mini earlier today

 

They do have rough castings inside the head.