If anyone doesn't know why most people don't recommend Fram filters this video will help explain it.

 

Ford MotorCraft is one of the better budget filters @$3

With filters, you get what you pay for. Low price filters aea all poorly made. But how much do you want to spend? Is K&N worth $20 to you? A handful of expensive filters and they are all better than the cheap ones. Are you willing to spend the money?

 

I usually buy Motorcraft for my truck, Pure One for my wife's Inifiniti, and Mopar for my Dodge Magnum Hemi. The Motorcraft and Mopar filters are available at Walmart. I'm not a believer in buying super expensive Mobil 1 or K&N filters.

 

I use a Mobil 1 filter because I run extended drain intervals with Mobil 1 EP oil.

 

Cutting open an oil filter tells you nothing. FWIW, some of the Purolator filters that are so well received have been made with the cardboard end caps for several years now. That doesn't make them bad. Yes, Fram has production issues that they chose not to fix. That's reason enough not to use one. But be careful reciting advertising hype. Some want to claim that the synthetic media filters more. Filtering more has never been an issue, capacity at the higher filtering rates is the problem when the filter gets clogged up. While I think it's worthless info, each filter has a Beta Ratio. That's where a known number and size particles of glass ***** are introduced into the oil. The oil is then ran thru the filter once and what it filters out in percentages is the single pass Beta Ratio. While I'm a fan of single pass filtration, a lot of the "performance" or extended mileage filters are always shown as multi-pass meaning the oil is ran thru the filter to the point it won't filter any more. I don't see where a filter that has to have the oil ran thru it many times to get the particulate out as being a "premium" or "performance" filter. But for the good news, most of our modern engines just don't make the trash (read combustion particulates) that the old engines did. WE have computers that pretty much have eliminated an engine running to the rich side yet still running great. So the oil filters you're using today don't have to work near as hard as filters on old carbed engines. I've seen oil filters that were factory installed still on the engine at 40,000 miles and still working great, one in particular still with the factory oil fill. Yeah, it was a relative of mine. But she learned from the experience. As I have said here often, if you're paying a premium price for something, you should be getting premium results. In most cases, your paying a lot for the same thing when it comes to oil and oil filters. It's your money and your engine.

 

Most of us could never go 40,000 miles, on a brand new car, and not change oil. But from what I've seen, it happens a lot. I didn't change my truck oil for 2 years, after I bought the van. No sense to change oil with 800 miles. But I did it anyway. Now I am debating if I should do it every 3 months like the book says.

Dealership techs tell stories of how a year later, someone drives back to complain about a glitch with the entertainment system, and a tech notices the black oil on the dipstick and the factory filter during the free multi point inspection.

Just goes to show how much the oil and filter can handle, and how well modern engines are made.

 

There is a video of someone driving a Porsche for 60,000 miles without changing the oil....

Amazing.

 

A friends brother is a chemical engineer who works for Conoco. He saw the results of a test Conoco did where they ran an engine 100,000 miles on synthetic oil with just filter changes and it did fine. So, he doesn't change the oil in his cars now, just the filters. Sounds stupid to me but it's his cars and money.

 

You can do that. However, I wouldn't do it without doing a periodic used oil analysis.

 

Last I checked for a used oil analysis, it's about ~$25. Even if you do it periodically, I'd periodically just change the oil, instead of trying to skirt the system.

I can change the oil in my truck for under $25 with Motorcraft products... so I'll stick to what's been working for me, even if I pollute more.

 

Well, if he works for Conoco, he can probably get that done free.

 

What do they do with the recycled oil anyway? I always save my dirty oil and take it to Autozone for recycling. When I was a kid in the 50's and 60's you could buy motor oil that was reprocessed oil. I haven't seen any labeled reprocessed lately.

 

They sell it back to you as synthetic oil............that's not a joke. A recycler picks it up, takes it to the plant where it goes thru either the ISO/SYN process or Raffinate process. The end result is a Gp III pure base oil. Before you think that's bad, the oil has already been sheared in the first run thru the engine. That makes the oil more shear stable. Only the boutique oil blenders are still using virgin feedstocks or I guess I should say, they buy virgin feedstock base oils. All of the OTC brand name oils are using recycled, highly processed base oils and virgin feedstock base oils.

In regards to changing oil filters only. When you pull the filter, you're going to lose about a quart of oil. Proper procedure is to top off the old oil with a fresh quart. It's that fresh quart that is saving the engine by replenishing some of the lost/depleted additives. The biggest issue with extended oil changes is combustion acids. The oil has base in the formulation to handle the acids. But like anything, it can be over whelmed. I've seen good results doing that at 5000 mile changes of filters only. While the engines did not show accelerated wear, they were sludged to beat the band. It's not something I would do to any engine I own. Some of the Lube for Life units will have an oil filter that's about the size of a football. Inside are acid neutralizers and anti-wear agents that are time released. You change the oil and filter at every 50,000 miles. So far, no auto maker has shown any interest in the units. I can imagine they are expensive. But if you are recycling your oil, there is no "resource" lost or consumed like some of the greenies want to make everybody believe. In most cases, the base oil is better than what it started life as.

 

Thanks for the information!

 

Absolutely correct. It cost just as much to send in a sample of used oil for analysis, as it does to simply change the oil. You don't want to be that guy who sent in a sample with 10,000 miles on the oil, only to find out that it's now time to change the oil.