20,000 miles Fram Ultra pics

[WellOiled]

Thanks to WobblyElvis for the cut & post.

The pictures do tell a story. The pleats near the splice are beginning to weaken and flatten out. A precursor to failure.

I would stick with Frams recommendation of 15000 miles max for clean environment and engine in good condition. The filter manufacturer builds in some margin to account for manufacturing variability. If the design margin is used up, then filter failures may be observed.

As others have stated the LOF change interval should relate to operating conditions.

 

[sw99]

Love those ultra's for sure. That thing looks fantastic for 20k

 

[CarbonSteel]

Originally Posted By: WobblyElvis
Just because this filter looks good does not mean that it is doing it's job well. For all I know it has been going into bypass for the last few months. I'll wait until I see the UOA before I pass judgement. IN any case, pretty well all filters should be able to go 20,000 miles.
The UOAs will not show anything out of the ordinary--plenty of UOAs on filters that have torn do not show a difference. The last two runs I did with FRAM Ultras did not show any significant differences between them and MC filters. I would disagree that all filters can go 20K miles. FRAM Extra Guards, Purolator Classics, Purolator P1s and the like were not designed to go 20K. FRAM Ultras, Purolator Synthetics, Royal Purple, and Amsoil could likely be ran that far on an engine that has no issues.

 

[Bluestream]

You can use no filter at all and UOAs are the same

http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/215731/6

 

[kschachn]

Exactly. The metals that show up on a UOA are not something that will be trapped by a filter.

 

[Stewie]

Did you mean KM? Since it was a fellow canuck

 

[WobblyElvis]

All these figures are in miles. My usual OCI is around 9,000 miles but I used synthetic oil this time and a little more highway miles than the norm. Depleted the Oil life monitor twice. Filter looks good.

 

[RubentheIowan]

Great looking filter even after all them miles

 

[BlueOvalFitter]

Nice looking filter for having 20K miles on it. But, as you stated, you will see how efficient it was after you get your UOA.
IMHO, the FRAM ULTRA is the BEST oil filter on the market! (But, MC is just as good too!

)

 

[SilverC6]

Originally Posted By: ZeeOSix
From what I've seen so far, the Boss has nothing over the Ultra. The Boss is probably another WIX XP running at 50% @ 20 microns efficiency and cost more to boot - not wonder Purolator doesn't show the micron level. Fail.


Did anyone ever get around to proving that 50% @ 20 microns is low efficiency?

The higher efficiency claims from some filter manufacturers seems to be a bit of marketing hooey to me.

The Ultra did look pretty nice having run all those miles.

But I'm not going to run any disposable filter 20,000 miles. To do that, you have to assume the QC on the filter from the manufacturer is 100%.

But when you look at the filters of every brand cut here on BITOG, we know that no oil filter manufacturer is running defect free.

 

[SirTanon]

Looks pretty great for a filter that ran for 20k. Definitely looks like it did its job.

 

[ZeeOSix]

Originally Posted By: SilverC6
Originally Posted By: ZeeOSix
From what I've seen so far, the Boss has nothing over the Ultra. The Boss is probably another WIX XP running at 50% @ 20 microns efficiency and cost more to boot - not wonder Purolator doesn't show the micron level. Fail.


Did anyone ever get around to proving that 50% @ 20 microns is low efficiency?


It's a lot lower efficiency than many filters on the market. I actually haven't seen any specs that are worse than that ... maybe some Chinese counterfeit filters might be worse than 50% @ 20 microns.

I know some people don't care about the efficiency, and that's fine - it's their choice. I just happen to like filters that are high efficiency if they are available.

 

[kschachn]

What will the UOA show?

Originally Posted By: BlueOvalFitter
Nice looking filter for having 20K miles on it. But, as you stated, you will see how efficient it was after you get your UOA.
IMHO, the FRAM ULTRA is the BEST oil filter on the market! (But, MC is just as good too!

)

 

[steveh]

How do you know that the higher efficiency filter is not going in to bypass more often then the XP. Who knows how often the Ultra is going into bypass after 10k or 15k?

 

[ZeeOSix]

Originally Posted By: steveh
How do you know that the higher efficiency filter is not going in to bypass more often then the XP. Who knows how often the Ultra is going into bypass after 10k or 15k?


It's rated for 15K, and part of that rating is holding capacity and the max allowed delta-p across the filter (per the ISO 4548-12 test spec).

I would think there is some "safety factor" in the design to account for use on a relatively dirty engine and still be able to hit the 15K mark without producing a delta-p above the bypass setting (it could be close though). That's all just theory based on how the filter should be designed by a good engineer.

 

[WobblyElvis]

After looking at the filter more closely, I found I could not shine any kind of light through the media. It appears to be plugged with soot/carbon/sludge. If I dig into the corners where the media is bonded to the end caps, I can pick out hard black carbon deposits. Blow-by past the rings? An oil sample was sent to Blackstone, so we'll see if the insolubles are high.

 

[WobblyElvis]

UOA came back fine. Here is pics of the carbon/whatever in the corners of the filter.