I was looking in the coolant tank on a C320 (2003) looking for signs of oil and noticed a cluster of small brass flakes in the bottom.
Has anyone seen this before?
I'm thinking it could be a sleeve bearing starting to fail in the water pump. What else could it be?
Car runs fine...temps. perfect....no noise from the pump, yet!...and no oil in the coolant.
Thanks for the input.
The radiator in this car is a Behr.

Modern automotive water pumps use ball bearings and the bearings are not exposed to water.

Brass in a modern car is pretty rare, radiators are aluminum as are heater cores.

I say brass only because they are brass in colour...I'm pretty sure it isn't gold. They are non-ferrus....so any ideas?

it could be someone used a stop leak in your cooling system

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1999 w140, quit voting to old, and to old to fight, a god damned veteran, deutschland deutschland uber alles uber alles in der welt

Does stop leak have brass in it?
What about the hose connectors.....any brass there?

bars looks like it.I use aluminum seal as a precaution with any car I buy. I've heard engine builders use a sealer with new engines.

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1999 w140, quit voting to old, and to old to fight, a god damned veteran, deutschland deutschland uber alles uber alles in der welt

By non-ferrous, I trust you checked with a magnet. Overheated ferrous flakes can sometimes take on a brass color.

I can't think of anywhere in the system that coolant sees brass.

It may be shop debris from the factory.

Somebody put brass radiator stop leak in my Benz before I got it. Didn't help, as it was the radiator tank that was leaking.

I flushed all kinds of trash out of my 2.3 when I did the water pump, radiator, and heater core all at once.

Sometimes I wonder what goes through the minds of car owners as they try to self-diagnose problems---usually wrong.

My car is running fairly right, now, finally.

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My first Mercedes Benz. 4/6/07.

1984 190E (201 024) 2.3L four.

Yeah...tested with a magnet. Not ferrous. ||Anyway...I flushed the system and replaced the coolant. Well see what happens.
Thanks for the input.