Pebble in oil--02 Mazda Protege

GEORGE LEWIS

MEMBER
2002 MAZDA PROTEGE

I have a 2002 mazda protege with 70,000 miles. I did an oil change about 1 month ago. I was wiping the oil filter area off with a towel, with the oil filter still off, and I believe I got some pebbles into the motor. I have a stone driveway and was not careful to keep the towel clean. My question now, is will a pebble reek havok on my motor? Or will the motor chew up the pebble and the pebble will end up in the oil filter? Another question is, should I not drive the car and take it to my mechanic and have him drop the oil pan and clean out the entire bottom half of the motor? The motor does sound like it is chewing up the pebble and is not a good sounding motor. Thank you for your response! George lewis

1 Reply

GEORGE LEWIS

MEMBER
2 POSTS

This is a post to my own post. I did ask my local mechanic the same question that I posted and he said: if there were a pebble in the crank case or the oil pan, the car would "only go from here to there". So I suppose that I don't have a pebble in the oil. Thank goodness. I do belileve that I got some bad gas and the valves were gummed up and then I used some gas additive and the gummed up junk started flakking off. Sounded like something was rattleing around inside the motor. The car is better now.