I'm not a mechanical guru or anything, but if I ever find metal shavings in my oil, I'm going to be a bit concerned.
Have you talked to your dealer about this?

 

Is there any special procedure or materials needed to flush the cooling system? Do I just drain the fluid and re-fill? What do I do with the old fluid?

 

As far as getting rid of the old radiator fluid, check with the town. I know in my father's town here in CT, the town office told him to pour it down the drain. The water treatment plant will take care of it.

But in my current residence, we must bring the fluid to the local dump, but only on hazardous waste day.

 

Ummmm, remember the leaking antifreeze post I had, the impeller shaft was bent, so I have had the problem as well.

 

shavings asin visible shavings, or fine dust in the oil? can you pick out pieces of alum.?

 

I'm not sure about the fine dust, but I have seen maybe 20 to 30 (estimated)rectangular metal filings, fairly narrow but 1/4" to 1/2" long (estimated) adhering to the magnet oil drain plug. Also, at the bottom of the drained oil there are some pieces of very tiny metal chips or ***** you can hold in between your fingertips.

 

Even if the water pump were shaving as you suggest, it should not be showing up in the engine oil. It would be in the water. If it were in the engine oil, that would mean that he had a cracked case and water was getting into the oil. This would cause a loss of power, loss of radiator fluid, possibly overheating, increased engine wear and water/steam to exit out the exhaust.

Since he hasn't mentioned these, then it is probably related to the use of synthetic oil being used in his engine. It probalby damaged the clutch disks and they are deteriorating still. Or, there are some internal components that were mis-assembled and it's still "breaking in".

There definately should be some communications between the himself, the dealer and Bombardier about a possible repair or replacement of the engine, since the dealer used synthetics against company recomendations.

Good luck,
CRT_Leech

 

UPDATE: I re-inspected the engine oil after about a few weeks since the last change and I am no longer very concerned. The metal filings on the oil drain plug are starting to diminish, there are no more tiny metal chips or round ***** in the oil, and very little metal flakes/dust. Also, I inspected the engine coolant and flushed the system and I am no longer very concerned about this either. There was some dust in the coolant made up of what looked like tiny metal flakes and also tiny plastic or rubber flakes. It is flushed now so I will check it again in a month just to be sure. I'll keep an eye on the oil as well.

 

There is one other thing I need to check in the cooling system. I need to be sure there is no blockage in the radiator. When I drained the fluid, it was much less than the 0.6 gallons that the service manual states as the capacity. If the radiator had a blockage this might explain it.