Well after taking my truck to the dealer for almost 2 years to have the oil changed i finally changed it my self yesterday and after me and my friend got done draining the oil for the drain pan we put it in to the empty bottles of oil and i notice some metal shaving. There wasnt a lot just a few which get my attention but we dont know if its from my truck or not because we use his drain pan. So now i am freaking out thinking my engine is screwed. I always have my oil change at or a little before 3000 miles and i have just recently changed over to full synthetic. Is it normal to find a few shaving? I will definitly buy a new drain pan the next time i have to change my oil to make sure that its not from my truck.

 

its not likely youll have shavings floating in the oil, esp if its only a few pieces, it would have been caught by the filter. if i had to guess id say metal shavings from the drain plug during removal

 

Yes, I agree. To reassure yourself, send a sample from your next oil change to a testing lab. It costs around $20 to do it. If there is any real problem, it'll show up in oil analysis.

Sometimes residue from machining makes it into lower section of the engine. It wouldn't get into the oil system because of your filter. First time I drained my factory rear on this truck I found a shaving, but inspection showed nowhere it could have come from. It's not right, but that's just the way it is sometimes.

 

how would i go about sending it in for testing? doesnt amsoil sell a test kit that you put the oil in a send it somewhere. i thought i heard someone on here talk about it but i cant remember all the details.

 

i wouldn't worry man, you got an 04

 

Yes, Amsoil does, but there are many labs. Go look here:

http://spacebears.neptune.com (which no longer works with FireFox browser, only IE) and look for the oil life study. I think they reference a number of labs. For sure, Blackstone is a good lab that does testing for around $20 to $25.

Also, http://www.bobistheoilguy.com probably has info on labs.

 

thanks for the info john

 

Blackstone is probably the most used lab for oil tests. Check out this link:

http://www.blackstone-labs.com/free_test_kit.html

I always change my own oil and oil filter. I do any maintenance I can and use a reputable private shop for the rest. I've had more than one dealer charge me for work not done and parts not installed. It wouldn't surprise me a bit if they charged you for synthetic oil and put in regular oil and charged you for a filter and did nothing but wipe off the old filter you had on the truck so it looked new and left the old filter on. I stopped taking my vehicles to the dealers when a dealer did a major tuneup and, among other things, charged me for installing new plugs and in fact left the old ones in and only cleaned the electrodes on the old ones. And, they overtightened one plug and stripped the threads in the plug hole (the car had an aluminum block). It was so bad the engine didn't work right on the way home from the dealer and I stopped and looked under the hood and you could see the plug moving in the hole. I stopped the engine and checked the plug and the threads were stripped so bad the plug pulled right out of the hole. I checked all the plugs and they were the ones that were in the car when I took it to the dealer. They hadn't even done a good job of cleaning them. Of course the dealer denied everything.