Need help, metal flakes in oil and oil burning

[Lazy2.5]

Gentlemen, let's actually wait for OP to reply.

What I want to know:

How was the car driven when brand new? If known, repeated WOT can cause accelerated wear and oil consumption.

How is the car driven now? What's the fuel consumption like?

I understand that aggressive, or other poor driving habits can't be the only cause for.. fragments of metal becoming dislodged from the engine. But. Kind of points towards that.

 

[Jmaz]

@Jmaz OP says burning 1.25 quart of oil between changes too

I saw that also but 1.25 qts in 7k miles isn't what I'd consider an oil consumption problem or indicative of damage.

 

[Kedis82ZE8]

I'd probably drop the oil pan to see if oil pump pickup screen is starting to be blocked by this metal debris.

 

[zx10guy]

With respect to the extended oil change intervals, it really depends on the engine and how the car is driven. While many say 10k OCIs will result in early damage to the engine, I can say it's not a given. Prior to my purchase of my 2025 CX-5, I was driving a Toyota C-HR with the 3ZR-FAE engine. Compared to all the modern ICE powerplants, this engine is about as basic as it gets with port injection, metal valve cover, timing chain with VVT. I did 10k mile OCIs and got the engine to 185,000 miles until it was done in by a car rear ending me. I have every confidence I would get the car to 300,000 miles without issue. Also, the engine didn't burn any oil. Dipstick showed full before I changed the oil.

The reason I kept with the 10k OCI and 0W-20 was due to the simplicity of the engine, how many miles I put on the car, and my driving habits (don't do a lot of WOT). If you do the calculation, that car was a 2019 bought in January of 2019....which means I put about 30k miles a year. If I did 5k OCIs, I'd be perpetually under the car doing oil changes.

My driving has changed now with the CX-5 where based on the mileage I have put on the car so far, I won't be doing 10k OCIs as I'm not driving as much. I'll probably settle on 5k OCIs. The only thing I'm still contemplating is whether to switch to 5W-30 oil.

 

[cz5gt]

just to share - My main CX5 is non turbo, i drive mainly in heavy city traffic and never had any fuel dil. Use only Mazda 0w20 and 91.
My Turbo though is different story - if driven in the same conditions it gets lots of fuel in the oil unless I go lots of highway to burn it off.
So I suspect the non turbo is ok from that perspective.

 

[Lazy2.5]

I'm at 350k km, fully tuned on 91 octane, NA motor. Burns no oil. 5w20 or 5w30. I monitor the colour and smell of the oil for fuel dilution. I change between 6-7k KM (not miles), as the oil starts to stink like fuel and is no long see through around that mileage. I change based on how much short distance driving im doing and how cold it is outside.

in colder weather and with shorter distance trips, or with internal seal wear causing oil consumption, the oil will become contaminated with fuel sooner and therefore should be changed sooner, especially if you rarely drive longer than 30 min at a time.

Change your oil whenever you like - just keep in mind that, just because you can go longer, if your oil is dirty, there's absolutely zero good reason why you should.

 

[N7turbo]

just to share - My main CX5 is non turbo, i drive mainly in heavy city traffic and never had any fuel dil. Use only Mazda 0w20 and 91.
My Turbo though is different story - if driven in the same conditions it gets lots of fuel in the oil unless I go lots of highway to burn it off.
So I suspect the non turbo is ok from that perspective.

How did you determine there was no fuel in the oil?

 

[Snake]

just to share - My main CX5 is non turbo, i drive mainly in heavy city traffic and never had any fuel dil. Use only Mazda 0w20 and 91.
My Turbo though is different story - if driven in the same conditions it gets lots of fuel in the oil unless I go lots of highway to burn it off.
So I suspect the non turbo is ok from that perspective.

Wow, 91 octane in the NA 2.5L. What benefit have you seen by going with premium fuel?

 

[SparkYellow]

OP may need therapy for the mental anguish from the discovery and discussion here. In his other posts he talked about the car being purchased used at 60K miles.

 

[stickerbush]

OP may need therapy for the mental anguish from the discovery and discussion here. In his other posts he talked about the car being purchased used at 60K miles.

Really. Thread has been hijacked into OCI and octane rambling.

 

[Kedis82ZE8]

@Dotiri This was already posted in this thread but do you still have the latest oil filter you swapped out? If so, you really should open it up

https://www.amazon.com (commissions earned)

 

[ruthrj]

Hi I have a 2016 Mazda cx5. Started doing my own oil changes an about 20k miles ago. Right now it’s at 100k. I’ve been doing oil changes every 7kish

The last two oil changes I’ve been finding small flakes like this at the bottom of my oil drip pan. It’s also burning about 1.25 quarts of oil every oil change. This was a brand new bucket I got for oil changes, so its not from another car. Is this something I should be worried about?

For my current oil change, I’ve switched to valvoline restore and protect (was using Mobil 1 extended performance in the past). Will be doing the next oil change at 1k miles. And would a magnetic oil drain plug be useful? Currently it’s just a regular oil drain plug with no magnetic end.

View attachment 382971

Hopefully OP comes back.

Do you still have access to this debris? I would want to try a few things.

Test with a magnet. That will be useful to determine if it’s ferrous or not.

Can the debris be crushed with something like pliers? Maybe be hard and shiny but if it crushes to a powder, that’s useful to know. Gave AI a shot and it suggested this could be carbon from direct injection. I have never seen this in my vehicles but carbon balls would be a lot less worrisome than potential bearing wear.

Report back on if you cut open the oil filter and if more of this debris is in there.

 

[greybeard]

Wow, 91 octane in the NA 2.5L. What benefit have you seen by going with premium fuel?

91 benefits this high compression motor, as per the manual recommending it for towing. 87 is the minimum

 

[Lazy2.5]

91 benefits this high compression motor, as per the manual recommending it for towing. 87 is the minimum

91 octane is mentioned in the manual for the NA motor?

I drove using only ethanol-free 91 octane in my NA 2.5 for quite a while before tuning it. It ran smoother at low rpm, likely due to the lack of ethanol content, not the additional octane rating. I kept using it because fuel economy increased enough to offset the additional cost. the stock ecu will not advance timing for higher octane fuel, so it's pointless if you're trying to get more power out of it (without tuning)

ethanol-free is hard to come by and in the process of being phased out here. once it is, i will compare 87 to 91 ethanol blends once again and decide whether i continue to use 91.