Quote:
Can you say pro-pri-e-tary? They do it with all sorts of stuff. It's good business, but bad marketing, and when the customers finally get wise it's game over. Sell the razor for a buck and sell 'em blades forever for whatever the market will bear.
Except the price of the OilGuard filter cases wasn't even close to a buck. And while it was very obvious that they were making good profits on the filters (they can't cost that much to make), this huge
price increase is just "milking the cash cow" (which goes beyond simple proprietary pricing).
As to me, I've decided to continue to use the OilGuard units for the present, as (even with the price increase) I can still get a few years worth of OilGuard filters for the price of replacing my bypass with some other (cheaper filter media) brand bypass unit. So given the bypass unit replacement costs, it still makes economic sense to continue to use the bypass units I have installed (even with the OilGuard filter price increase), instead of replacing them with some other bypass units. But that doesn't mean I'm happy about it, nor does it mean that I'll ever install another OilGuard product (just that I'll keep using the ones I already have installed, because the cost of switching to something else is an even worse option).
Now that said, this little ________ has finally got me to switch over to Amsoil AEO full flow filters (which weren't on the market yet, when I got the OilGuard units), instead of the "NAPA Gold" filters I used to use (too bad I have several unused "NAPA Gold" filter I bought on sale, that I now don't have a use for). And with the greater filtration of the AEO filters (over most full flow filters), I probably can run the (OilGuard) bypass filters much longer than I used to do (since the AEO filters should grab a large fraction of the junk in the oil, leaving the OilGuard filter to just "clean up" what is left).
And the "good news" is that even if I overestimate how long I can run the OilGuard filters, and they do plug up (by running them too long), it's unlikely to harm the engine. After all, I would expect that if the bypass filter "plugged up" (and therefore lost its flow), the vehicle would just revert to using just the normal full flow filter (acting like the bypass line, which is teed off the oil pressure sensor, wasn't installed in the first place). And so with the much better EAO full flow filter installed, I feel OK with running the OilGuard bypass much longer (then I use to) to save on cost (as the bypass unit is IMHO much less needed, than it was before the extra good full flow filters were on the market). And at least on two (of my three) vehicles with the OilGuard unit, it's very easy to check for a blocked bypass (as the bypass returns via the oil cap, on those two cars).