Vehicle is a 2018 Land Rover Discovery with the 3.0 TDV6 diesel engine. 57,000 miles. Oil changed every 5,000 to 6,000 miles. No warning lights and the engine still runs fine.

I’ve started noticing larger shiny flakes / glitter in my oil filter over the last few oil changes.

Most of the oil changes have been done at the dealer, but I always save the filters, take them home, and cut them open to inspect them. The last couple filters have had visible shiny flakes in the media, not just the fine metallic shimmer you sometimes see.





My warranty expires in a few months, so I’m planning to take it to the dealer with photos and video of the filter media and push them to investigate before coverage runs out.

A few questions for anyone who’s seen this before:

• Is visible glitter/flakes in the filter normal on these engines?
  
• What components usually shed material like this (bearings, timing chain, etc.)?
  
• Would you push the dealer for an inspection / tear-down while still under warranty?
  

Curious if anyone else has experienced this and what the outcome was.

 

5k oil changes is probably the best you can do for td6 (which you already did).
If possible, I would suggest a used oil analysis. I have a thread here you can use for comparison.

 

Send all oil samples to Blackstone. Waiting on the report from this oil change. This was the reply after the previous oil change, "Thanks for letting us know about the metal you found in the filter. We didn't find any visible metal on our end, but iron did increase in the spectral results. Other metals are in good shape, so hopefully the increase at iron is just related to something situational like heavy hauling or a lot of mountain driving. Still, this level is at the higher end of average, and this is the second report where it's increased, so we'll want to keep a close eye on how iron trends."

Thanks

 

If you feel comfortable doing so, please post the full report here. curious to see the numbers..

Here's the thread if you want to compare numbers yourself.
https://landroverforums.com/forum/ne...d5-td6-120108/

 

Here is the analysis.

 

I did some searches on bobistheoilguy forum (looked for "metal flakes in filter"). The results would make me keep an eye on it and continue with 5K oil changes, but it wouldn't cause panic.
btw what is the drive cycle for this motor? short city drives or longer freeway runs?

The Iron trend on your report seems to be higher than mine, but I'm not confident a dealer would be able to convince JLR to authorize a teardown for inspection.
Few thoughts:

• Try a different oil, preferably a 0W-40.
• DIY changes are pretty easy. If you want a second set of eyes/hands, one of us locals can assist. Looks like I'm barely 20mins away.
• If you plan on keeping the car long-term, an extended warranty would be a good idea. I bought mine from fidelity (7yr/100k)

 

Thanks for the offer, I have a 2017 Td6 with 100,000 on it and been doing all the oil changes on that and using 5W40. Had a few warranty repairs on the 2018 and let the dealer do the oil while it was there. Going to run a magnet over the flakes to see if they are steel or iron. I'll try to update this as it progresses.