Motorcraft FL-500 C&P...with a tear!

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I hadn’t seen many of the FL-500s posted here with tears, so I was really hoping this model wasn’t affected by the Purolator quality issues. I actually tried to search and count the various MC posts here to get a ratio of bueno to no bueno...but we all know how limited the search engine is. I’ve cut two others recently and not had any issues, but that record stops today.

The FL-500 I have installed now will be the last Motorcraft filter I’ll use. Even if it doesn’t tear, I’ll be batting .250 with these and that’s not acceptable. Guess I should have cut this one open before putting the new filter on...

Somebody can translate the born-on-date...


The ADBV looks great. It flexed without any problems (ignore the dirt on the second picture)



No drama with the spring


Pleats looked nice and straight on the back-side, but...


Then I saw this...


Close up of the tear.


Hard to see in the picture, so I circled it...but even the other end of the torn pleat is starting to show signs of stress.
 
The filters with the tears must be the low restriction racing filters
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Sorry, forgot to add that...4,500 miles/192hrs on this OCI. I’m dropping an oil sample into the mail later today. Should be interesting to see how that fairs.
 
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Filter was made 2/22/2017

So in other words, they still tear
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Next time use Wix, Wix XP, or Fram Ultra
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Are you using a high viscosity, or non synthetic oil? Or do you immediately drive off on a very cold engine? I wonder if high oil viscosity is causing the issue.... The modern thought to start driving at 30 seconds warm up on below zero days seems to me to be asking for trouble.

In the piston aircraft world, we use some very viscous oil, but we are cautioned against using any significant RPM until the oil temperature is in the green zone, or about 160 degrees F.
 
Originally Posted By: Cujet
Are you using a high viscosity, or non synthetic oil? Or do you immediately drive off on a very cold engine? I wonder if high oil viscosity is causing the issue.... The modern thought to start driving at 30 seconds warm up on below zero days seems to me to be asking for trouble.

In the piston aircraft world, we use some very viscous oil, but we are cautioned against using any significant RPM until the oil temperature is in the green zone, or about 160 degrees F.


5W-30 (spec for engine) full synthetic. I have remote start for my truck and use it 99.9% of the time. I always give it 3-5 minutes (at least) to warm up, especially when the weather is cold. But where I live (Seattle) it rarely drops below freezing.
 
Originally Posted By: Cujet
Are you using a high viscosity, or non synthetic oil? Or do you immediately drive off on a very cold engine? I wonder if high oil viscosity is causing the issue.... The modern thought to start driving at 30 seconds warm up on below zero days seems to me to be asking for trouble.

An oil filter is supposed to protect itself from delta-p damage with its bypass valve. But, it's certainly possible the bypass valve is under designed or can malfunction, especially under very cold start-ups and high engine RPM right after start-up.

We all know that the brittle media combined with large pleat spacing is a good recipe for torn media. I'd say that's also the case here.
 
Originally Posted By: Onug
Sorry, forgot to add that...4,500 miles/192hrs on this OCI. I’m dropping an oil sample into the mail later today. Should be interesting to see how that fairs.


Thanks for sharing the hours. You've used that filter more than the mileage suggests.

I just did an oil change after 250 hours and left the Fram Ultra on. I'm thinking of leaving it on for another 2 oil changes which will mean 400 to 500 hours more. Based on what I've seen, I think that's not a problem, certainly not in my climate.

You have another FL500 on there. Are you ok with that? I'm personally not touching Purolator filters for the forseeable future.
 
Onug - Sorry you had a tear but now we know the 3" OD MC cans are not exempt from tearing. Problem not solved as of 2/22/2017. Thanks for the cut & post.
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Originally Posted By: MParr
I’m curious. Would priming the oil filter prevent some of these tearing issues that we have seen?

I highly doubt it. If installtng oil filters dry caused tearing you'd see many other brands tearing too.

This is a Purolator problem of combining brittle weak media with wide pleat spacing. We've seen many other filters posted in this forum with wide pleat spacing without tears.
 
Originally Posted By: CharlieBauer
Originally Posted By: Onug
Sorry, forgot to add that...4,500 miles/192hrs on this OCI. I’m dropping an oil sample into the mail later today. Should be interesting to see how that fairs.


Thanks for sharing the hours. You've used that filter more than the mileage suggests.

Just means the filter saw a lot of low speed driving, which IMO should lead to less overall stress on the media.

What would the resulting tears look like if those miles were all done at high speed driving?
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Note, don't use weak filters in a race car.
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Why the surprise? I have not seen anything that implies that Purolator has admitted fault, therefore no need for corrections. The flashy package relabel is a marketing department thing, nothing to do with actual filter construction. I can only see one reason for the decline of tears showing up, which is people are avoiding using them, and less are inspected.
 
Originally Posted By: CharlieBauer


Thanks for sharing the hours. You've used that filter more than the mileage suggests.

You have another FL500 on there. Are you ok with that? I'm personally not touching Purolator filters for the forseeable future.


Yeah, the idle time was about 30% during this cycle.

I’m not happy about having the MC filter on there now, but I’m going to wait for my UOA to come back and see what the oil looks like. I’m planning another cycle similar to this last one, so if the oil isn’t wasted I might leave it. We shall see. My OCD might cook off next week and I’ll swap it out
 
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