magnetic drain plugs- gimmick or worth it?

Its only a couple of quid, few cars have them fitted as standard, odds are the metal wouldn't get past the filter but its worth getting it out of the engine anyways and it can be a good indication of engine wear / problems.
 
The idea being any metalic bits of "crap" floating around in the sump find their way onto the end of the sump-plug rather than remain floating around in the sump.
I honestly thought all cars had magnetic ones anyway - well it can't hurt anything.
 
Most of the first oil changes I've seen have had very very small pieces of metal or debris in the oil when its drained.
The last change I did on my ZZR 600 it had some debris in there, bike was fine though.
 
I think they can be a good idea, you can also get magnetic oil filter wraps which are meant to work pretty well too.
I think the filter wraps have the benefit of keeping the crap in the oil filter so when you change it you can take it off and put it on your new oil filter.
 
we had a customers car come in with one on an oil change service, it was a 1.6 polo and we found lots of little metal particles stuck to the magnetic sump bung.

I would say they are quite good.
 
Anything will get caught in the filter, however they will stop bits of metal getting through the pump -which is before the filter
 
I think they are a good idea, but a lot of metal in modern engines isn't metallic, so there will still be some floating around, but yes, can't hurt. Rear Diffs often have them from the factory.
 
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