A MICRON (not to be confused with a MERKIN) is a one-millionth part of a metre, thus a one thousandth part of a millimetre. That's quite little. In fact, if someone offered you a Jelly Baby that size you might not be ecstatic. On the other hand, it wouldn't rot your teeth much either.
In decent human measurements (inches of course) a micron is 3.93700787402e-005 of an inch .... 0.00004 of an inch, that's about one twenty-fifth of one thousandth of an inch .... no kidding .... that big huh?
Now a REALLY FINE hydraulic oil-filter will try to trap particles down to 5 microns, but usually a 15 micron filter will be fine, and car engine oil filters (depending on make and type) might typically hope to trap anything 25 microns or bigger - so anything 24 microns or less just passes right through.
Then there's the by-pass valve in the filter head. We all have one. It passes HEAPS and HUNDREDS of UNFILTERED oil at the drop of a hat, like at cold start time, and / or when the filter gets a bit clogged (you have no way to find that out) and yet hardly ever does an engine come to harm from particles in dirty oil. Why not?
Because dirty oil is still OILY oil.
What kills an engine is when the oil stops doing one or more of three things:
1. circulating round the engine
and / or
2. it stops being just right oily enough (too thick, too thin, water pollution, fuel dilution)
and / or
3. when the oil gets loaded with metal filings or sand or grinding paste, and so on.
Morals:
Keep the oil reasonably clean.
By changing inexpensive oil regularly you physically remove 95% of the harmful bits. The filter should get most of the rest.
Oil filters cost a fiver. CHANGE THEM! All the bad stuff is in there! BIN IT!
On cold starts DO NOT rev the engine - this raises cold oil pressure way past the level of opening the by-pass valve and FORCES UNFILTERED OIL through the system at the worst possible time. TD5 owners ... read your manual!
Let the oil warm up a little before driving off, and drive gently till the temp gauge comes up.
Whaddya say Slob? Is that about right?
Well, anyway, it's what I do.
CharlesY