Scirocco Register

Plastic, sounds like parts of the dipstick guide has found its way in at some point!

Ha!

Or could there be something in the sump that shouldn't be there, that may be partially blocking the intake pipe but moves when going downhill?

The question you need to ask yourself is where did the broken pieces of plastic come from, what are they, why are they there?

See above^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Was there a black plastic baffle attached to the oil pickup pipe? Or has this disentigrated?

Im just going to stick with the baffle idea. As there are some rather large bits there all in a oily bucket now so meh. The bottom end looks spotless for a car thats done 177k its not bad. But thetappety noise it used to make has completly died down. And theres no more annoying engine oil light buzzer.

Smooth as silk. Just need to sort the sunroof. Paint. Suspension and audio out now. Cheers for the info much appriciated

I seem to remember someone else (christhemann, perhaps?) also had plastic debris in his oil. It was from some kind of impeller/pump (maybe the oil pump itself, I don't know how they're constructed). I think it turned out that the cheap versions have plastic parts that can fail like this, and the pricier ones are metal and don't have the same problem.

ianaudia4 - our posts were 3 minutes apart, we must have been typing at the same time, so I didn't see your helpful comment re the dipstick guide until afterwards, so apologies.

Re the impeller, I think the metal vs plastic debate relates to water pumps, the oil pump is two interlocking gears which must surely be metal...

Well it deffinatly cant be a oil pump impeller. As its a sealed unit. Only exit is the oil ways and the strainer that has a gause on it. So it has to be a baffle of some kind. Ill up load a photo of my bucket of plastic i pulled from the strainer and sump

right so this is what was in the strainer...



the piece im holding was lodged in the strainer aswel....



and the rest of the plastic in the bucket is was what was left in the sump.

That's a lot of plastic - looks like part of the black plastic baffle supplied with the pump, maybe came loose and got bashed by the crankshaft.