Scared to Death of these cars !

[Lucky]

Originally Posted by lowflyer60

So, just bought a '01 S this week, looking for info on the IMS problem. What do you look for when you inspect the oil filter?

Little silvery metal flakes and black plastic bits. The metal, no surprise, is from the balls and race disintegrating. The plastic is from the cage (which keeps the balls properly spaced).

I highly recommend replacing your stock oil drain plug with a magnetic one -- LN Engineering sells these. This is another way to capture metal bits ... at least the ferrous ones.