VikingTrad3r

I maintain 4 vehicles at my house, a 2006 tacoma, a 2006 yukon xl denali, 87 and 85 vette.

I change my oil often, within 7000 klm, 4300miles.

I use high mileage oil with additives, usually QS defy and I wander past the aisle way at the local store and if it is on sale at least 30% off i buy as many jugs as i can hold.

I have used mobil 1, bosch, OEM lexus and toyota, FRAM, WIX, Motomaster, and I have CUT OPEN every type of filter i have ever used and i have seen absolutely zero difference between any of them in their effectiveness of filtering my oil. There is no difference between the amount of material between the pleats.

i see a bit of different construction across the board, different materials...but here is the thing...i have seen zero difference in effectiveness.

Not interested in factless based opinions. There is a heap of hate out there for fram which seems baseless as far as i can tell--based on ability to filter oil. I have seen no signs of a fram "falling apart" internally due to it being glued and not stapled. Just can't sort out why the hate is out there for fram. Or, frankly, the el cheapo motomaster brand either. Its the same as a fram.

What got me thinking about it was that i went to store last night to grab a filter and the typical fram i used, 3506 had jumped to 13$. lol! And there is no inflation in Canada...yeah...good one. I saw the "motomaster" brand for 6$. So I bought it.

So what is the deal? Is the hate baseless or do we have in our collective experience ON THIS BOARD evidence that using a cheaper fram or whatever puts the user in a higher probability of oil filter related failures?

Thanks for any experience you can add in.

--
side note: this past summer my family purchased a 1999 25 kw kubota generator for our cottage in the boonies. It had 196 hours on it. Barely used. The filter was the original filter. So I bought a new one and decided for fun that I would cut it open to inspect the pleats. I thought maybe with that many dry years that the pleats would be dried out and maybe cracked or something. Nope. The pleats did rip apart (using my fingers) slightly easier than a newer filter. Meaning that maybe the filter material was stiffer or harder or more brittle than normal. I did run the machine on that filter, and there were no abnormal pressure readings. So....I am just starting to think that maybe we are all changing our oil filters way way way more often that we need to. The OIL itself is a different story....you can see it get black . The filters....I just don't know about.

wolfie1961

In my opinion, unless you putting your engine under a lot of stress (racing or hard driving), Fram is just fine. I've used Fram in my daily drivers. If you're changing your oil at the right intervals, and you have EFI vehicles, I think it's fine.But then, I'm just a normal idiot here. No where near a Dale Armstrong.
I use Wix in my boat engines, but then I'm running them hard and at 3500-6500 RPM for a long duration.

VikingTrad3r

maybe thats part of it. without being stapled, the seam pleat may become unglued in excessive heat situations.

mickey5

Napa Gold filters are made by Wix and cost about 6 bucks. At a price like that why buy cheapies? The folks at the C6 forum have done a thorough oil filter review including materials and construction. Its an informative read.

PLRX

The question is, whats wrong with the AC Delco oil filter?

I use AC delco, they are cheaper than old, and I only know few people that drive the Be-Jesus out of their Vettes like I do.

I do drive them, I do it real good.

VikingTrad3r

I'll have to check into the price of the ac delco thanks.

I spent a few minutes doing advanced searching for the c6 thread on oil filter reviews and i found many small threads but no big one that shows them all cut open. you can see them on youtube there are guys who have done this.

all i found in the c6 thread was a bunch of people saying they have used fram their whole life and never had any issues.

im not trying to defend them, but i am trying to avoid spending extra money on disposable items. seems like there may be zero reason to do anything other than the cheapest ones on the rack.

drcook

oil filters are like any other filters in such as how small a particle (measured in Microns) that a filter will allow to pass through. In my diesel, I run the fuel through a 10 micron filter, then a 4 with, both with water separators and the front (4 micron) has water coalescer properties. I have the parts now to add another filter and run a 10, a 2 and then on to the primary 4. Why ? because injectors are $450 each.

on my transmission and oil filters, I also get good ones and change them often (on all the vehicles) because the price of a filter is (as I said above) cheap compared to injectors or a motor or a transmission on a vehicle you intend to keep and have running at peak performance.

here is a good read that will help understand about oil filters/filtration etc

http://www.shoclub.com/lubrication-o...n-oilpart1.htm

Joe C

ac delco here - buy them by the case -

QCVette

Take a look at the following links. They disassemble and test a lot of brands of filters.

It shows why the cheap Fram have been so bad and have a poor reputation, and the newer versions of ACdelco that have an "e" at the end of the filter number are poor also.

There are many good and many bad filters. In practice I suspect that most will work fine 99% of the time, but why buy the poor ones when the better ones are about the same price?

Main page:
http://minimopar.knizefamily.net/oilfilters/

Breakdown by brands:
http://minimopar.knizefamily.net/oil...nce.html#delco

Recommended or not:
http://minimopar.knizefamily.net/oil.../opinions.html


Edit:
I use either Purolator or Wix.

VikingTrad3r

thanks for these links. ill review tonight after kids in bed.

i just hope its based actual evidence and not qualitative onservations about comparing internals of one to another. i am seeking actual evidence.

like drainbavk valves for example....i heard people trash some filter for drainbavk valves. but ive never seen anybody display evidence that there is a difference in the functionality of one with a metal/plastic/cardboard valve.

just looking for real data not opinions is all. i find sssooo mich is opinion based which is heavily influences by the marketing message rather than actual data!

appreciate the feedback. biggest thing so far is buy in cases!

Kevova

Most recognized brand oil filters are probably equal. Royal Purple did a youtube video about oil filters and most of the one they cut apart were pretty equal. Their of course was superior as you might expect. Some non oem companies react quicker than oem. example Fram installed check valves for drain back in SBC filter before AC Delco so TSB referred using Fram filter for cold start knock back in 93 or so. There are some sub standard filters out there IMO most likely found in a" 99 cent type store". I have seen oem warranty information but there was no mention of brands. Just in certain types of failure filter should be looked at.

383vett

I've used Fram HP4 racing filters for decades. Very popular at the track. Built with thick walls to prevent blowouts. Very stout.

kael

Kind of hard to measure microns with the naked eye, neh?

v8vette84

I will never put FRAM on my cars. I was brought up using fram until I worked at advance auto parts and they used to have a display with the filters cut in half. The video shows just how cheap and shitty the fram are. This is probably the cheapest fram filter made BUT I'll bet that's what 99% of the fram buyers actually purchase.



Regardless if the filter works when new, it's when the filter hits higher mileage (wife forgetting to tell you about the mileage) that I would be worried about the build quality. Just look at the metal crimp that missed part of the filter media that is allowing unfiltered oil back into the engine. That alone would worry me. Plus cardboard filter ends? What happens when you soak cardboard in oil? The cardboard becomes soft and it's ability to maintain shape is severely compromised. I personally buy anything that is not bottom of the line unless it's Purolator, they make a very good cheap filter.

A comment on one of the videos.
"another consideration is the location of the bypass valve. Fram has their's at the bottom of the filter. That makes the pumped oil go across the dirty filter media when the oil is too cold and sends who knows what to your bearing surfaces. When the design allows, wix has their's at the top allowing oil to go right around not picking up previously captured trash."

BrandensBeast

I stick with K&N just because I like their filters and all of their products (I use their air filters) i've used AC delco, Mobil 1 and Stp. I actually ALMOST bought a Fram filter yesterday but decided against it.
I stick to K&N, walmart was out of stock so i had to go to a "REAL" auto store....yep, had to pay 15 dollars plus tax for the one at autozone, it would of been 9 dollars at walmart if they had it in stock

drcook

I also, oil and filters are cheap in comparison, takes many years of changing too often to equal the price of an engine/transmission

all these filters everyone is talking about have a "bypass valve" built into them. at start up when the engine is cold, or such, the bypass valve allows unfiltered oil to go to the engine

I have wore out a couple cars and the engines still ran as new with close to 200K miles on them. they didn't use a drop of oil and still had super compression as they didn't coast to stop when turned off. the cars themselves became to expensive to maintain (at least here in Ohio land)

that is a true statement and you really can't tell how small a particle a filter is capable of catching simply by looking at it

JrRifleCoach

I've opened many a filter and posted the results here as well.

What I have learned is that most DIYrs are idiots when it comes to choosing an oil filter.
And those same people will make all sorts of excuses why they'll choose crap products.
An example of this is running a Fram with the best oil on the market.

There are few more examples in the posts above that I will avoid repeating.
Debate, argue and walk away butt hurt.
Its your engine and your always welcome to do as you please.





A comparison of L98 (SBC) filters specific to our cars.
https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...d-version.html








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v8vette84

It always pisses me off when I see cheap filters paired with much better oil in an "oil change deal". At least some auto parts stores let you upgrade the filter for a few bucks.

hcbph

I've had problems with Fram Air Filters in the past on my T-Bird. When I bought my F150 I later found that there had been reports of Fram Oil Filters dropping fibers that would ultimately plug the cam phasers in a number of articles on the web. When I was at the Ford Dealership one time I talked to one of the warranty folks and one of the head mechanics about it. They told me that Ford had disallowed more than one warranty claim because they found the customer had used Fram Oil Filters. I've since read some of the tests done on oil filters, that pretty much convinced me that it was best to avoid Fram Filters and I have.

VikingTrad3r

there is still zero evidence in this thread.