Originally Posted By: i_hate_autofraud
Wear particles generated in a normal engine are so small they pass thru oil filters and
are free to cause more long term wear. ( .1 micron to 5 microns)
I've always driven cars to 300K or more and that's were you see it the most,
low compression, bad smog tests, lower fuel economy, etc.
Filters that catch 20 and 40 micron particles are 'rock catchers' at best.
40 Micron is .001" !! This's pretty big!
Manufacturers are fooling the public with great filter claims knowing their
filters catch particles that are nearly never present in an engine unless
it's ready to blow.
A possible exception is a 'rock catcher filter' in a tired old 1960's Chrysler
Slant 6 engine that pukes blowby and crud by the bucket! LOL
On any modern engine in good shape, 20 and 40 Micron filters are just
picking your pocket!
Of course there's no proof of that, and my limited experience would show otherwise. All my vehicles have used "rock catcher" OEM filters, and the Asian vehicles since new. None have excessive consumption, nor do they have low compression and all pass the emissions testing here in southeastern Wisconsin. I have well over 300,000 miles on my Sienna.
Filtering efficiencies are not absolute, they are probabilities. And all filters will capture small particles at some efficiency so it isn't as if a particle that passes through a filter once will continue to do so indefinitely. In fact it will not.
You also state "Manufacturers are fooling the public with great filter claims", where have you seen these claims? I've never seen any claims made by the OEMs for their oil filters, neither good nor bad. Everyone seems to have seen these claims besides me.
ZeeOSix will be along shortly to point out that a filter with high efficiency is necessarily better in that capturing more particles is always better than capturing less. I don't disagree with that assessment. But to say it translates into a difference in engine longevity is not something that anyone has ever shown, or at least I've never seen it.
Also, to buy into the conspiracy theory that OEMs specify low efficiency filters to deliberately sabotage the longevity of their vehicles is completely inconsistent with everything else the do, at least for the vehicles I own. I've never seen any deliberately deficient OEM fluids, parts or designs that contribute to poor longevity, why would they do it for oil filters?