Does anyone use a magnetic plug in their LR2 oil pan? Have you ever found anything of concern? I was wondering if these even make sense with aluminum blocks.

 

I do. Every time I get the oil changed I have the tech under the car show me the plug. Any filings there are cause for immediate fire alarm. If you are really OCD about what your oil can tell you, you can send a sample out for analysis every time you get the oil changed and they will tell you of any trends of concern. Aircraft owners do this. The smart ones who care about not losing their engine over a landscape of rocks with no place to land, that is. Remember, the really crucial parts of your car's engine are not made of aluminum, only the engine case, for the most part.

 

Glad to hear you haven't had a fire alarm.

 

It helps that I no longer eat anything from Taco Bell.

 

Yep, no shavings.

 

Aluminum blocks have steel sleeves, so the normal cylinder wear is all steel (magnetic), but with various alloys depending on the part.

Magnetic goo on the plug is normal, especially a thin film. Very fine shavings are also common enough.

Magnets can't hurt, and might help control very fine debris. Also you can observe any trends of increasing wear.

Anything resembling a large flake or chunk is a problem.

As FlyBD5 mentioned, oil analysis is the gold standard, since that will report non-ferrous wear metal, and also compare your results to baseline averages for large numbers of like engines.

I don't do it every oil change, but I'll do it before investing a lot of money in upgrades, paint, etc for an older car.