Purolator is still listening- Engineering report

[NJC]

Originally Posted By: 440Magnum
Wow. The Purohaters getting worried they'll lose their raison d'etre when the problem actually gets fixed?

I don't think this is a fair representation. I've seen a few tears in my own Bosch filters out of the same plant as the Purolators. Enough to be concerned and not want to support a product that appears to be failing under normal service limits.

 

[ZeeOSix]

Originally Posted By: Hootbro
Originally Posted By: ZeeOSix
... BUT it's their Engineers who should have their finger on the pulse of chat boards like this to see what's going on with their products.


That is presumptuous pandering and most engineers would tell you that. Unless some specific engineer is getting paid, they are not hanging out on end user forum boards by practice. Let alone acting upon those who hack open their product and act upon that.

Most engineers and engineering departments that follow an ISO 9001 root cause, corrective action (RCCA) process, will have defined process on how they investigate and act upon presented quality defects. Most times the process has to back channel up through end users making claim of defect directly or indirectly through the repair shops they use. Not, some internet board by end users playing "engineer" after the fact.


The first step to determine the correct analysis for root cause and coming up with the correct fix is finding out there is a problem in the first place. One way of doing that quickly is having people at the company investigate all information associated with a potential problems - and that might even include monitoring chat boards like this to see what's going on. Is that so complicated that it couldn't be done?

IMO, I think it would be wise and beneficial to any company to see how the public is viewing their products. Feedback from customers is paramount for this. Sitting in a dark room oblivious to what's going on with your product is just plain foolish. There have been many members from this board alone that have contacted Purolator and have even forwarded links to threads in this forum ... yet their engineering department is just finding out there might be a problem. Wow!!

 

[Tony10s]

Good Report .... Thanks for letting us know your progress with this so far.

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: Hootbro
Listen, mock what you want, but the ignorance of engineering processes is strong in this thread.

Among all the stuff that's been slung around over the issue, there is one valid question here that hasn't been answered, and it's exceedingly confusing for those of us who aren't engineers.

"Purolator claims they never sample used oil filters in the field." Why not? We know oil companies do field testing. What do oil filter companies do? Do they just make a filter to match the specs they came up with through reverse engineering and simply send it on its merry way? What do other filter companies do?

It just seems to me, not understanding the engineering process, that even a modicum of ongoing field testing would have discovered this issue long before BITOG posters ever did.

 

[ZeeOSix]

^^^ Simulating field use conditions in the lab could probably detect a problem like this also. That's what test labs are for, and that should be part of engineering and product quality assurance verification. At least it was in my work environment quite a bit.

 

[ExMachina]

Originally Posted By: Garak
"Purolator claims they never sample used oil filters in the field." Why not? We know oil companies do field testing. What do oil filter companies do? Do they just make a filter to match the specs they came up with through reverse engineering and simply send it on its merry way? What do other filter companies do?

It just seems to me, not understanding the engineering process, that even a modicum of ongoing field testing would have discovered this issue long before BITOG posters ever did.


Right on. Very insightful. I fully expected Purolator to get defensive with valid facts, like claiming, for example, that Purolator never saw this in their continuous flow of in-field samples; or some statement like that. Quality Control factory guy a long time ago was in this thread getting quoted saying that Puro needed to start looking in the world.

Doesn't make sense to me. Granted, ZeeOSix is noting bench tests should have clued them in early. OK, yet there is nothing like temperature, pressures, viscosity variations, real oil pumps, age, etc. that the real field does the best.

 

[ZeeOSix]

Originally Posted By: ExMachina
Granted, ZeeOSix is noting bench tests should have clued them in early. OK, yet there is nothing like temperature, pressures, viscosity variations, real oil pumps, age, etc. that the real field does the best.


They could easily put filters through some bench tests that would replicate some of the worse field conditions. They can certainly control oil viscosity, flow rate and pressure quite easily with a good test bench, and even control loading of the filter with debris.

Control of all those variables are used to simulate field conditions to the best way possible. For instance, if you want to simulate filter use in Montana in the middle of winter on a high flow volume engine with some yahoo revving the engine after a cold start-up, then you control the viscosity and flow rate to simulate that and see if the media can take it or not.

IMO, that's better testing than taking filters used in the field because you really don't know what exact conditions those filters went through. Taking samples from the field will certainly tell you if the product is holding up under actual use conditions or not. And as you know, members here pretty much shown that they were not holding up.

Once that is established, THEN you go do some controlled testing to find out what's causing the failures. The lab is the place for controlled testing to trouble-shooting for the root cause of the failures.

 

[DoubleWasp]

I see nothing to change my opinion that this is a company that sold a bad product at a premium price, and has been sluggish and incompetent at correcting these issues.

When all is said and done, assuming they do anything, am I supposed to love this company or trust them/

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: ZeeOSix
^^^ Simulating field use conditions in the lab could probably detect a problem like this also.

I should hope so, though grabbing some field examples can't hurt, even though they obviously don't have the data chain from start to finish, like on a real field trial.

It's great for us to be able to rattle off ISO best practices, but something is clearly amiss. And, this has been going on long enough that there's no excuse for Purolator engineers not to have gotten a whiff about it. Someone is either dishonest or never leaves his workspace all day, even for lunch.

 

[Dallas69]

I guess if 90% of the oil gets filtered with tears, that's good enough for Puro.

 

[Garak]

Then they should change their equals sign to a "~" for their filtering efficiency listing. If ">" causes a great deal of confusion, then look out.

 

[Sayjac]

Originally Posted By: Hootbro
...Listen, mock what you want, but the ignorance of engineering processes is strong in this thread. Rather than mocking the $5 dollar words you do not wish to understand, try stepping up to their level of where an engineer is coming from. Then again, that will negate the bombastic armchair quarterbacking this forum so loves.

Thank you for all your posts and thoughts in this thread. Similar to former poster Jim Allen, clearly you are one that posts with integrity of thought. I respect your opinion on the subject at hand and the response. Excellent posts.

And while difficult to ignore the mocking, best imo not to take it too personally. There are some here that in addition to recognizing the bombast you note, also now see the ever present shenanigans that also unfortunately permeate the forum. And also unfortunately the ignore feature becoming a useful tool and why, as I've noted previously in this thread and others.

On the heartening side, reading this thread further there are good number of recognized non duplicitous posters, some long time, that have appreciated the OP's efforts and are at the least, open minded to Mann&Hummel's response.

And as the OP noted as contact, it is Mann&Hummel the long time owner of Puro US, that has and has had the ultimate responsibility for Puro US products.

 

[HangFire]

Originally Posted By: ExMachina
Yet, when you read old posts, Purolator claims they never sample used oil filters in the field. Strange business practices.

I never heard such a claim when discussing my issues with Purolator. In the intro by the Marketing Director, I got the impression that individual dealings usually involve claims or are working out specific application problems, while field testing is done with fleets.

If you think about it, dealing with one guy with 20 similar vehicles is a LOT easier than 20 guys with 20 different vehicles. I was never placed under an NDA, but that might be different for a fleet tester, and would explain why no one is speaking up in that regard.

 

[440Magnum]

Originally Posted By: Garak
And that's why I'm thankful each time someone opens up a filter here, no matter what it is.


Same here, even when there's nothing to see. I cut every filter that comes off every engine, now. Not only do I get to recycle a little more oil and put cleaner metal into my recycle bin, I get a quick sanity check on the filter.

That said, I've gotten a little lazy and stopped posting every single Royal Purple or Purolator PSL I cut open- I have yet to find even the slightest defect or even slightly uneven pleats in any of those.

 

[HerrStig]

Originally Posted By: WobblyElvis
When I sent in a torn filter they said they could not test it because it had holes. This makes some sense yet they said they will test your filter. I wonder how they are going to do that.
Come on, they can still test the components.

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: 440Magnum
Same here, even when there's nothing to see. I cut every filter that comes off every engine, now. Not only do I get to recycle a little more oil and put cleaner metal into my recycle bin, I get a quick sanity check on the filter.

That's why I'm glad for guys like you. I can make enough of a mess with a Fumoto and a well oriented filter, let alone taking said filter and trying to cut it apart. They'd probably have to surround me with oil booms, or kitty litter, at the very least.

 

[HangFire]

Here's the UOA I promised:

http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/3921169#Post3921169

Draw your own conclusions.

 

[ZeeOSix]

^^^ So the Tearolator was on there 3 OCIs ago, so obviously if the tear caused any higher counts in the UOA, we'd never know by this UOA test.

 

[HangFire]

Originally Posted By: ZeeOSix
^^^ So the Tearolator was on there 3 OCIs ago, so obviously if the tear caused any higher counts in the UOA, we'd never know by this UOA test.


That's not the point.

The point of the UOA is to find if their theory of filter clogging leading to media failure has any basis in reality.

 

[ZeeOSix]

Originally Posted By: HangFire
Originally Posted By: ZeeOSix
^^^ So the Tearolator was on there 3 OCIs ago, so obviously if the tear caused any higher counts in the UOA, we'd never know by this UOA test.


That's not the point.

The point of the UOA is to find if their theory of filter clogging leading to media failure has any basis in reality.


Yeah, I wasn't sure what the point was, so I made a guess. So you are saying that the UOA is clean, which means that Purolator didn't know what they were talking about when they analyzed that filter you sent in? No surprise there.