[J0shTN]

My 128i with 123k miles that I recently acquired shows, 1 previous owner and regular maintenance history at the BMW service center.

I drove it over the weekend and the car started making a whine and would stall at stops with a CEL. On restart the CEL would clear. I was able to drive it home and pulled the oil filter. There I noticed the filer was collapsed a bit so I installed a new Mann filter. I cut open the old filter and noticed a large amount of brown and black particles.

I did start the car and ran it for a few minutes with the new filter. No issues, CEL, or abnormal sounds/vibration. I pulled the new oil filter after that startup and noticed no similar particles.

I am thinking this is guide material since I see brown. The pieces are easily broken and not magnetic.

What else could it be? I didn’t think guides were a problem on the n52 but plastic isn’t going to last forever. Edit-after looking closer at this the particles are all flat and very brittle, making me think this is a coating that has deteriorated, maybe off the inside of the carbon steel oil pan?

I was soon to start the oil pan gasket replacement. The contents of the oil pan may tell the full story. What other scope items would you add to further investigate this?