Decided to cut open the FL820S that was in my brother's Navigator with ~215k miles. We do oil changes according to the vehicle's oil monitoring system.
The metal end cap fell off of the filter element as soon as I opened it up. The pleating was folded over in one spot and when I pulled one pleat to straighten it out, the media ripped. The media was quite crunchy feeling and I couldn't see past the folded over pleat to show if there was already a small tear present; the big rip happened when I straightened out the pleat, but there was no way to tell what was already there. The material that the metal end cap was adhered to showed signs of falling apart as evidenced by the pieces of it that were caught by the filter media.
My dad and I have been using FL820S filters since 2000 when my family purchased an Excursion that was owned until 2013. We've continued to use them until this last oil change on my brother's vehicle. I was hoping the reputation that the FL820S has on here was slightly overblown and that my used filter would be okay...this unfortunately wasn't the case. I switched over to a Tough Guard and I am hoping that when I cut that one open for the next oil change, that it will present better internal construction than the FL820S has.
The metal end cap fell off of the filter element as soon as I opened it up. The pleating was folded over in one spot and when I pulled one pleat to straighten it out, the media ripped. The media was quite crunchy feeling and I couldn't see past the folded over pleat to show if there was already a small tear present; the big rip happened when I straightened out the pleat, but there was no way to tell what was already there. The material that the metal end cap was adhered to showed signs of falling apart as evidenced by the pieces of it that were caught by the filter media.
My dad and I have been using FL820S filters since 2000 when my family purchased an Excursion that was owned until 2013. We've continued to use them until this last oil change on my brother's vehicle. I was hoping the reputation that the FL820S has on here was slightly overblown and that my used filter would be okay...this unfortunately wasn't the case. I switched over to a Tough Guard and I am hoping that when I cut that one open for the next oil change, that it will present better internal construction than the FL820S has.
Last edited: