Hey Jake (or anyone else with a well-reasoned opinion)
 

I was changing my oil/filter recently and something got my attention. I have the SPOFA and magnetic drain plug. I got to looking at the oil on the drain plug and rubbed my fingertip over it. What I got was a thin but noticeable shiny residue on my finger. Not really gritty at all, just felt/looked like wet, metallic shiny talcum powder. (I should have taken a pic, but I was home alone and, of course, my hands were a bit oily to be handling the camera.)

Considering this is an engine and it does has moving parts that do rub against each other (even though in a well-lubricated fashion) plus the fact that I now have this strong magnet grabbing most everything metallic that flows past it, are my findings particularly unusual, or is this a definite red flag?

I still have the filter (a WIX spin-on)---would it be useful to cut it open? If so, do you just go at it with a hacksaw, or is there an easier way?

I ask, of course, because I (like many Boxster owners) am concerned about possible IMS issues. BTW, the car has 52K miles.

Opinions??

The best things to do are to take pictures of the shiny stuff, and see if anyone can identify it visually, and the other part is to put it into a sample container, and send it off to someone who can test it, to see what its made of, like Blackstone labs.

Since it's attracted to a magnet, its ferrous, which means its made of iron.
So, we are probably going to guess rings, cylinder bores, cam chains, or crankshaft, since I believe everything else in the motor is mostly aluminium, or some other alloy blend.

BC.

All engines generate some fine metal as the result of normal wear, which is why the magnetic drain plug is a good idea. As this is your first pass draining the oil with a magnetic plug, is has also collected stuff that was already there but had not come out with previous oil changes. I would also second cutting open the filter and checking it as well. There are specific tools to do this without creating a lot of metal filings, which a saw would do. The tool is much like a giant can opener, and can be found a most decent speed shops, or on line. In general, if the debris is very fine, and not a lot of it, I would not be overly concerned. If the metal is granular or in larger flakes, that would be a "red flag".

http://www.jegs.com/images/photos/55580532.jpg

Thanks for that pic JFP. That just looks like a tubing cutter, but bigger. I've got a couple of old cutters lying around that I can cabbage for parts, so with that and some bar stock it should be a snap to make one.

They are easy enough to fabricate, but don’t get overly carried away doing it as a good one is only about $30-40, and they live forever……………