I have a 2009 DB9 that runs great and very fast and quiet. Expertly maintained and babied, and oil changed every 3,000 miles with Mobil 1 Synthetic 0w-40 and only AM filters from the dealership (I watch this closely and change it often as it has been known that low oil and deferred maintenance can cause engine problems with the V12s due to starvation, etc). Regardless, over the past 2 changes, I have seen quite a bit of aluminum shavings in the oil. I started changing the oil ever 200-500 miles to be sure and the problem is progressing. I assume the engine bearings are wearing, somehow.

Is there a resource to have these engines remanufactured or purchased from the factory? I am weary about paying $15K-20K for a rebuild then have a leaky engine after it's installed. This engine is quiet and leaks nothing and rather than tampering with it, I'd prefer dropping in a new engine.

 

+1 for Matt's advice.

 

View this recent thread for the benefit of an oil analysis:
https://www.6speedonline.com/forums/...bad-coach.html

 

Hard to tell from here what's in your oil, but Blackstone is a great place to find out.

As mentioned the plain bearings aren't aluminum, but your camshafts do run in aluminum journals. They load the head casting in that area with silicon carbide to harden it and since the camshafts run at half speed and don't have much load they don't need bearings.

I mention this frequently here, but you def. want to prime the oil system when you change the oil by holding your foot to the floor for 10 seconds, wait 10 seconds and repeat 3-4 times. And then give it 10-15 minutes to warm up before getting on the motor. 12 quarts is a lot of thermal mass and you want it hot so it flows well - especially in the valve train at the rear of the motor...

 

But, to answer your question - I have seen remanufactured engines in Ebay, but your dealer is the best place to get an engine. If you have access to a lift and are handy it's a pretty lengthy but straightforward process.

 

How many miles on the engine? Do you know if it had regular service all its life?

 

I will try to answer a few questions here. The engine has been maintained beyond spec, as with all my cars. I do my own work mostly, on Aston, Ferrari, Maserati, etc. With all my cars, I always wait quite a bit of time before taking off after a cold start, and I NEVER rev beyond 3K rpm until the OIL has heated to normal (not just the coolant). With no oil temp gauge this is guess work, but regardless, I am careful. Some cars need that more than others, but it's become habit for me. I'm in Florida, so "cold" starts are typically 60 degrees plus in an enclosed garage.

When I mentioned "aluminum," that was a huge assumption on my part based on the fact that the flakes are not attracted to a magnet in the least. The flakes are large however, some approaching 4mm in diameter. After less than 300 miles on the new oil, I changed it again and found about 12-15 flakes in the drip pan. Not encouraging.

About the priming after the oil change, I agree! Unfortunately, that feature doesn't exist on the 470 bhp cars. If I hold down the gas and start, it'll just rev high! That's with the pedal all the way down.

I will collect some oil and send to Blackstone to see what they say. If this turns out to be catastrophic, then a junkyard engine for $30K is NOT an option. It seems that's the going rate on ebay for the 470/510 engines. Seems that this series of motor is now going for double that of the new body DB11s!

 

100% FALSE. I do this all the time on my 2009 DB9.
Step 1. Insert key till flush.
Step 2. Wait for the throttle plates to calibrate (you will hear a click)
Step 3. Foot down on the accelerator and hold
Step 4: Clutch down
Step 5: Press and hold starter button. Don't release button
Step 6: Wait a few seconds, allowing it to crank and then release clutch
Step 7: Depress clutch again to continue cranking
Step 8: Release accelerator when ready to start
Step 9: Release starter button

How many miles on your engine?

Also for what its worth Mobil 1 0w40 is more a 0w30. Lots of oil analysis done showing the viscosity isn't stable. It also lost its LongLife certification many years ago. It really isn't the same oil that was spec'd 18 years ago for these cars. You might want to use a true 0w40 from AMSOIL or Valvoline if you're in a hot climate. Or even 15w50 as some folks are running here in California. And also the AM oil filter is just a basic filter from Mexico last time I looked at it. You can use the CM-6731-FL820S as an upgrade. Its probably the best filter money can buy for our cars and is made in the USA.

 

I've tried this many times with no luck (mine is an auto trans.), following the steps from Steve at Aston1936. I called the dealer and they said it has no such feature, but it's not uncommon for dealers to not know much. I will certainly try again this evening using your steps!

My car has 42K miles. I change the oil very frequently - approximately once every 1000 miles or so it never hits the 5K / 10k mark. I always bring it right to the full mark and fill the filter. I was not aware of the certification issue on the Mobile 1. I've been using it religiously on the Ferraris and it's amazing. I personally cold tested it and it performed better than all the brands and worked better on stabilizing noisy variators on a Maserati dry sump (which I covered on MaseratiLife), which included Castrol Edge Supercar which was a huge waste of money. Either way, just because it worked best on the Ferrari engines doesn't mean it's the best on Aston, so I'm down to try anything.

I guess I'm just afraid of breaking away from manufacturer specs on such a fragile car. The Ferrari V8s and V12s can be tracked for over 100K miles and never ever ever need a rebuild, yet there's a guy here in FL I know who has now rebuilt 7 DB9s due to total engine/bearing failure. These were low mileage cars too! Just don't get it.

A quick internet search or discussion with various techs will always yield different opinions - piston slap, oil starvation (due to consumption during spirited driving, not checking oil, wrong length dipstick, etc.), cat ingestation, deferred maintenance, whatever, but so many still have virtually the same problems. I ignored all of it until I found large flakes in my oil. Now my ears are wide open to say the least.

I'll try the AMSOIL next week when I plan to change the oil once again to see if the problem persists. This time, I will cut open the filter element to see if the flakes are contained only to the bottom of the pan, or actually circulating throughout the engine. I do see that all the flakes sink fast and are the last to come out when draining.

Thanks for your advice!

 

View this recent thread for the benefit of an oil analysis:
https://www.6speedonline.com/forums/...bad-coach.html

I've seen that thread before and although I feel the oil analysis is beneficial, I've NEVER seen metal particles in oil in any of my cars, and I'm very meticulous. The though that an engine described as "healthy" has that much flake scares me. Mine is producing larger flakes, no doubt, but that metallic sheen is there a bit also when shining light on the oil.

I certainly cannot wait to see what they say about mine. Fingers crossed.

 

I'm sorry to hear you're going through this. We have two 2009 V12s here that I know of (including mine) that are in the 50+k mile range and both are running perfectly. We're starting to replace/rebuild injectors at this mileage but everything else has been just scheduled maintenance.

If you're doing 1000 mile oil changes then I suspect any oil will be good enough for such a short service interval. I too keep my oil at the full mark. I use Mobil 1 as well since its like $4/qt at Walmart. No other reason

Its a bit fiddly but you can remove the primary O2 sensors to look into the top of the cats to see if there has been any breakup.

 

The dry crank feature works on all v12 Astons until they changed from the Ford ECUs to Bosch. If it doesn’t work, you aren’t doing it correctly. The typical error is not having your foot planted to the floor; could be a floor mat is in the way or just being too gentle.

 

Given your concern it would be worth filling the filter to the best of your ability before scewing it on. You can also pull the fuse for the fuel pumps to keep it from starting..

 

I did put a borescope into the cats to check - nothing looked awry. It literally takes less than a minute to remove the sensors with a 21mm O2 socket and an angle extension. I even placed a 1/2" vacuum extension in there to potentially suck out any dust, should there be any. I totally understand Mike from BR's concern about the cat ingestion issues, but you become suspect like me when you see multiple V12 suffering from failure with perfect cats. Too many common denominators in my opinion. I think there is a legitimate risk of that occurring but I don't buy the quote that he's got at least one rebuild in his shop at all times due to the issue. Something else is up, no doubt. I know someone personally with a DB9 and destroyed cats - you can literally see "golf ball" shaped holes in the honeycomb, firing off P0430 codes every 25 miles and he refuses to cut them out. Over 100K on the car. Still runs smooth. I'll post pics of the odo and screenshots from the borescope when I see him, you won't believe it. Anyway, my point is that engine should have fallen apart at the seams long ago given the circumstances, but it hasn't. With this said, I just think there's a lot of unknowns about the integrity of these V12s as some of them are bulletproof and some simply fail early, for whatever reason.

 

I'm definitely doing it wrong them. I'll try it out and report back.