We've seen plenty of OCOD's cut open I know, I was curious on this one as I ran it a full 5k on my wife's van and the UOA for that same run indicated coolant contamination. So I wondered how it had held up. Sorry, done with a hacksaw, no cutter yet. Motor oil was STP 5w30, the PH3980 is a PF-52 equivalent, an oversize on my wife's 3.4 Chevy Venture van. Engine has 137k and looks clean through the fill hole.
I was surprised how good it looked once I got it open.
The media was in great shape, I was expecting some deformation with the coolant.
Here's the seam side with typical Fram larger plear spacing in that area. All appeared intact and even the large gap seams showed no deformation. The fiber end caps were both straight and rigid.
This one had the newer base plate style. Not impressive to look at but I admit it gave me no trouble. In fact during installation it seemed to bottom out, preventing the filter from being overtightened. The ADBV was seated on the fiber endcap so firmly some of it ripped off when I removed it, if you look closely you can see a little of it still. You can also see a ring around the top of the center tube where it seated in the previous pic above. The ADBV was still soft and pliable, but was thinner than I expected, almost flimsy. No issues with the mounting gasket on the face plate.
A view inside the can revealed dirty oil and grit, the filter was doing it's job.
All in all I was presently surprised with how well the filter held up. Since this filter was nearly free as part of an oil change special I certainly got my money's worth. I used the dreaded "OCOD" for years before I "knew better" and never had a problem. Based on my first hand examination here I certainly won't lose any sleep at night using one in this application again...as long as the price is right!
I was surprised how good it looked once I got it open.
The media was in great shape, I was expecting some deformation with the coolant.
Here's the seam side with typical Fram larger plear spacing in that area. All appeared intact and even the large gap seams showed no deformation. The fiber end caps were both straight and rigid.
This one had the newer base plate style. Not impressive to look at but I admit it gave me no trouble. In fact during installation it seemed to bottom out, preventing the filter from being overtightened. The ADBV was seated on the fiber endcap so firmly some of it ripped off when I removed it, if you look closely you can see a little of it still. You can also see a ring around the top of the center tube where it seated in the previous pic above. The ADBV was still soft and pliable, but was thinner than I expected, almost flimsy. No issues with the mounting gasket on the face plate.
A view inside the can revealed dirty oil and grit, the filter was doing it's job.
All in all I was presently surprised with how well the filter held up. Since this filter was nearly free as part of an oil change special I certainly got my money's worth. I used the dreaded "OCOD" for years before I "knew better" and never had a problem. Based on my first hand examination here I certainly won't lose any sleep at night using one in this application again...as long as the price is right!