Getting your engine to talk to you part 2.... Oil

Getting your engine to talk to you part 2.

Understanding what your oil is telling you.
There are 2 options here to get your engine oil to give up its secrets.
The first option is to drain your oil into a very clean container. Then drain that oil through a disposable paint filter you can buy at any paint store.
Next rinse your oil filter in a safe solvent and drain that through the same paint filter.
    Now we examine any metal you have caught in the paint filter. First, take a magnet and see if any of the metal is picked up by the magnet. darker-colored pieces can often be parts of gears and polished pieces can often be bearing material. That said where gears mesh with anything that metal can look polished also. The bits of metal the magnet didn't pick up are usually aluminum. It is not uncommon to have a few very small bits of metal especially aluminum in your oil. The time to start being concerned is when you see something that sticks to the magnet bigger than a fleck of dandruff.

The second option is to simply send your oil out to be sampled by one of the labs that specialize in that service. Typically they will send you a prepaid shipping kit and you place approximately 2 oz of oil in the supplied bottle and send it back to them. By doing this every other or 4th oil change you will get a trend report to see how the life of your engine is coming along.

Note #1 small amount of short hair-like bits that look like they fell out of an electric razor that is attracted to a magnet is fairly common and not usually a cause for concern.

Note #2 "Some" engines use bronze thrust washers on each side of the connecting rod. If you see any copper-colored bits in your oil this is a bad sign and requires a deeper inspection.

Note #3 I am a big fan of using a high-quality magnetic drain plug on MX bikes.