I have a 2004 Toyota Tacoma with the 2RZ-FE, 2.4 L motor with 157,000 miles and I currently run 5W-30, Mobil 1 EP. I just switched from conventional to synthetic about 1 month ago and my truck runs great.
As a general rule of thumb, I'm one of the those people that believes it's best to stick with an OEM filter, which is what is currently installed on my truck. However, I must admit that I'm considering switching to a Fram Ultra because I see so many of you really think it's a great product and, from a specifications perspective, it does sound like a good filter. I like it's very high filtration efficiency.
Although I like the Fram efficiency, I also believe that the engineers at Toyota are capable of making a filter that could have the same efficiency, so I'm wondering why they didn't? In other words, I'm wondering if the folks at Toyota that engineered the motor and the filters created a filter that may not have the absolute best filtration characteristics, but that didn't concern them - the engineers were willing to sacrifice some filtration ability for better flow characteristics? Maybe they felt the flow of the oil was more important than getting every little speck of contaminant?
I'm sure some engineer(s) could create a filter that has 100% efficiency, but it's ability to flow oil would be awful so you'd wear out your motor in short order due to oil starvation!
So for those of you who are big fans of the Fram Ultra, how do you feel about it's ability to flow oil versus a Toyota OEM or any other OEM for that matter? I guessing it surely doesn't flow oil as well?...and does that concern you?
Thank you for your feedback!
Ed
As a general rule of thumb, I'm one of the those people that believes it's best to stick with an OEM filter, which is what is currently installed on my truck. However, I must admit that I'm considering switching to a Fram Ultra because I see so many of you really think it's a great product and, from a specifications perspective, it does sound like a good filter. I like it's very high filtration efficiency.
Although I like the Fram efficiency, I also believe that the engineers at Toyota are capable of making a filter that could have the same efficiency, so I'm wondering why they didn't? In other words, I'm wondering if the folks at Toyota that engineered the motor and the filters created a filter that may not have the absolute best filtration characteristics, but that didn't concern them - the engineers were willing to sacrifice some filtration ability for better flow characteristics? Maybe they felt the flow of the oil was more important than getting every little speck of contaminant?
I'm sure some engineer(s) could create a filter that has 100% efficiency, but it's ability to flow oil would be awful so you'd wear out your motor in short order due to oil starvation!
So for those of you who are big fans of the Fram Ultra, how do you feel about it's ability to flow oil versus a Toyota OEM or any other OEM for that matter? I guessing it surely doesn't flow oil as well?...and does that concern you?
Thank you for your feedback!
Ed