Originally Posted By: Silver02ex
Originally Posted By: 440Magnum
A P1 or Wix in that application would look perfect. Been there, done that.
Perfect? really? maybe you can explain why the media on this P1 I pull off is all beat up after 3,000 miles. Give it more time and miles, I wouldn't be surprise it would look worse. Looks at the Microguard in the other thread. It looks great.
http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2021384&page=1
A few clarifications here:
1) Fram Microguards are demonstrably/objectively good filters, I'm talking specifically about the low-end Frams.
2) What looks so bad about your P1? A few wavy folds is no big deal, it just means that the filter has been subjected to (and survived without losing integrity) a high flow rate and resulting across-media pressure drop. It does look pretty gloopy like it's been catching some stuff that might concern me, and that probably resulted in the pressure drop. All in all, I'd say its doing its job in a bad circumstance (lots of particulates in the oil). Compared to the Fram in THIS thread, and looking JUST at the surface of the media and not worrying about the fold shape, your P1 looks substantially more clogged with thick stuff, likely from all the short trip use. I note particularly the thick smear on one of the metal end-caps- I know it probably got there during the cutting process, but that stuff was likely in the filter housing somewhere before cutting moved it onto the end-cap (correct me if I'm wrong). But the media itself has a thick sheen as well. The Fram from the Durango looks like a pretty normal accumulation, rather than a heavy accumulation from short tripping. The inside of the Fram can looks very clean.
3) The mutilated Fram in *THIS* thread probably isn't actually "mutilated" by the engine itself. It probably WENT IN looking a lot like that and just got more irregular. Its fairly typical because the low-end Frams have so little media and the folds are very large to start with and therefore don't always keep each other perfectly straight and parallel- the folds have space to deform in. Also, I'll bet a lot of the "waviness" in the end cap was there also- note that the end cap doesn't appear to be round from the factory, it appears to be cut with clearance notches to allow oil to flow past it- not an altogether bad idea.
Re-reading my post, it didn't come off exactly like I intended it to, nor the way it sounded in my head. What I really was trying to express is that, despite the fact that I do consider them measurably inferior to other filters, MOST (probably >90%) of the basic orange-can Frams out there work just fine and never cause a problem. Even if you use them exclusively and get a bad one every 10th filter (again just a SWAG, maybe its every 30th filter) its probably not going to ever show up as shortening the life of your engine.
The only time I would ever expect a Fram to cause measurable damage is the case where the fliter folds completely collapse around the center tube and cause a very large pressure drop and/or make the filter bypass all the time. Again I consider this more likely to happen in Frams largely because the folds are so "open" that they have more room to move around and collapse on each other, combined with the paper end-caps being less able to hold them in place than metal. I've had that happen to me, and it immediately shows on an oil pressure gauge (or did on my engine, which has a "last in the oil flow path" port for the oil pressure sensor.)
In short- I don't subscribe to the "Orange Frams are the kiss of death!!!) hysteria. Nor do I believe that "they're just fine" either. They're a low-end filter that *generally* works OK, but don't have any margin for error.
So Frams will *probably* never hurt a thing... BUT, If you're cautious enough to worry about finding
the best engine oil vs price point,
the best drain interval, etc. etc. why would you ever use a filter that is DEMONSTRABLY more likely to be flawed than others, yet only costs maybe $3 less? Buying a $3 Fram verus a $6 Purolator or Wix just seems like false economy to me.
