FL-400s with torn media

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I took this FL-400s off my 2002 Focus today. The torn pleat looks like it collapsed in on its self and it's torn on both ends. All the way on the top and most of the way on the bottom. Of course it is the one by the seam. It has just over 4500 miles on it with QS Defy 5w-20. I was going to run it a little longer, but since it was 50 degrees today I decided to change it early. I am glad I did. I replaced it with a Fram Ultra. I had already planned to stop using Motorcraft filters after finding the big hole in the FL-820s, but this one was already on and I decided to leave it till my next oil change. It has not seen below zero temps yet, but it has seen some hard driving and high RPMs.

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After I found torn pleat on the 400s, I took this FL-820s off my truck with 1600 miles on it. I replaced it with a Napa Gold. The top cover was loose and I saw these chunks of adhesive.

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Here is a pic of the seam. No torn pleats or holes.

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I wonder since canister oil filters first appeared how many of them have had flaws inside them. I'm sure less than 1% of the people who touch them in any way cut them open. I bet hundreds of thousands of them have been flawed and nobody would know the difference.
 
Definetly appears to be the Purolator "classic" tear whereas the 820s tear appeared to be a manufacturer defect. I'll be keeping a closer eyes on these for sure.
 
Originally Posted By: abycat
I wonder since canister oil filters first appeared how many of them have had flaws inside them. I'm sure less than 1% of the people who touch them in any way cut them open. I bet hundreds of thousands of them have been flawed and nobody would know the difference.


I think Car and Driver knows about the difference two times on their Corvette. You wonder how many other engines have been ruined and the owners don't have the same resources or clout. I'd be interested if I showed up with a Corvette with a seized engine at 6000 miles during a track day if they would have done any investigation to root cause at all.

Sadly the race to the bottom now includes oil filters. If Motorcraft and Purolator can't make decent retail level filters I cringe at what their cheaper jobber level filters perform like.
 
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This is sad to see. The FL400s has been my go to oversize filter for years. I have one on my beater 900 now, I'll be cutting that one open for sure when I do the next OC in Feb.
 
Sad but true anything associated with tearolater is junk and may destroy your engine eventually. It's a NO Brainer Stop Using Junk !!!1
 
Who makes that filter for ford ? I have used them on two trucks for years . 500000 on a e250 and 78000 on my f150 ,makes me want to go back to wix
I gave up Kendall oil for the same reason

Jake
 
Originally Posted By: ZeeOSix
^^^ Purolator makes Motorcraft oil filters.


Thank you. What would be a better pick ? I run mobile oil now ,like it. Now a new filter ?
Jake
 
Fram Ultra or WIX/NAPA Gold ... favorites of members now.
 
That is sad news (& rare)-just swapped the QS3600 on my bro's '87 Tercel 1.5 E yesterday, he was running NG ML 10W40 through the summer in it, cut it apart, glued seam, looked perfect-not even wavy-with 7K on it. I've moved my 4.0 XJ in my sig to XG8A Ultras, going to go THREE 5K OCIs on them & see how the filter holds up (it is unusually clean inside for almost 220K, though).
 
Mobil1, K&N, Royal Purple, Bosch D+ ...honestly, all of those and any on about the same tier you can probably run 2 consecutive oil changes depending on your app and just get the value out of it and have better performance than a risky tear in just 1 OCI of w/e mileage.

Unacceptable. I will pay more if I have you. Fram Ultra is fine and Napa Gold is okay, but for the price and capacity Ultra or high-end like stated and you shouldn't go wrong.

Just consider that you could use it for 2 consecutive OCIs if you wanted to get the capacity capabilities out of it.
 
Originally Posted By: buckeyejake
Originally Posted By: ZeeOSix
^^^ Purolator makes Motorcraft oil filters.


Thank you. What would be a better pick ? I run mobile oil now ,like it. Now a new filter ?
Jake

If you sign up for the O'Reilly cash countdown, you get a $5 off $10 coupon each time you enter. Limit is 1 entry per day and sometimes you get duplicate code numbers.

http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/3556778/1

That'll lower the price of a $12.99 Mobil 1 oil filter to $7.99, less than the cost of a Fram Ultra XG3600 at Walmart. I don't know what the M1 cross-reference filter number is though.

https://mobiloil.com/en/oil-filters/performance-oil-filters
 
That's not good... I've cut open a few and haven't seen any issues luckily.

I haven't cut open the last few, but it looks like I'll start cutting them open again.
 
I had planned on running a 400s for my winter 5w30 PYB OCI. It'll only be around 2500-3000 miles though.
 
I've been running FL400s filters in my Jeep since the first OCI. My OCI's are 6k and more recently, it has taken me a year to get there. I'll be cutting my current one open when I pull it off. I'm at about 4500 on this run, so I may cut it short to see what's going on in there. I've got 2 more FL400's waiting in the wings. I'll return them to Wal Mart and exchange them for something different, if I find any problem. If I find no problem, I'll be sticking with them.

I once had a Purolator PurePlus begin to disintegrate in my 06 Solstice. One thing I loved about that Ecotec engine was the cartridge type filter, because you could see exactly what is going on, and you could change the filter with no mess at any time, without changing the oil. I wish all my engines used that kind of filter. My Mercedes does, and I use Wix. The last one went about 2 years and I'm guessing 6k miles, and it looked great.

It makes me nervous for my two Fords, too. The Transit will be pushing 10k OCI's, and the pickup goes a year, although with few miles.
 
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