OK, here's the story.
Background. IT's a 99 base 2.5 with auto, not manual. The chassis has approx 96K on it. The car received a new engine under warranty at 55K so approx. 40K miles on the engine.
The car has been running fine, then last Thursday I notices a slight hesitation under constant speed, it went away under any load, just a hesitation at constant speed. The next day my wife was driving the car, she noticed the slight hesitation, then the check engine light came on, the car stalled and she rolled to a stop. She restarted it, it moved a few feet then the same thing happened. I told her not to try again and went to retrieve her. When I got there I noticed some drops of oil under the center line of the car. When I saw that I suspected the worse, IMS bearing. I then towed it home.
The first thing I did was check for error codes, nothing, all clear. Then I drained the oil into an open pan and troll with a magnet. I found one spec of metallic material that I feared was a bit of bearing. I removed the oil filter and cut it open, but it was perfect. I also pulled the oil pan, again, perfect, zero contamination in there, or anything visible in the engine. Everything looks perfect.
The one spec of metalic material
UP inside the engine, perfect.
Adrian Thompson 
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