Fram Ultra - beating a dead horse.

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Is there not a middle ground on the Fram Ultras?

I change my oil at 5000-5500 using Chevron Texaco Pro DS grpIII syn, because Hyundai (GDI/Connecting Rods Spinning/Engine seizures, etc.).

But I leave the filter on if it's got only 5000-5500 on it and go another OCI. I mean if the filter is rated for 20,000 then 10,000 should be a breeze right? The engine is dead silent on startups, which leads me to think the ADBV is still working. Hyundai cars are notorious for making a lot of start up noises if the engine doesn't like the filter for whatever reason.

I'm debating in my head going three OCI on the filter this time. It sure is nice not to have to deal with changing it on my back on the garage floor. A expensive UOA with particle counts for each OCI would be telling, but I don't particularly feel like paying for one. Sometimes, life is easier if you just drive and don't think about it. Engine is quiet, runs strong, gets good mileage---->no problem.
 
Thank you all once again, lots of food for thought here.
The reason I don't do expensive, for me, tests or experiment with this that or the other thing is that I can't afford it as I'm on a fixed income. Another reason why I'm driving around in a 17 year old car with just over 200,000 on it.

Fortunately external factors like weather are rather easy on a car here in Orange County, California. So I mostly have to turn my attention to internal factors.
That's why I keep up the fluid service on a lot of things that most people forget other than oil, such as coolant and transmission and brake.

Anyway, because of the lack of disposable income, that is why I have to come to forums like this and rely on people that have done or research and or have a variety of practical experience in the area to pass on their information to help me make better decisions in this area.

Not wanting to have to pay for repairs is another reason why I don't want to risk extending out out my OICs any more than is prudent for this year, make and model of car. Of course I know there is a point of diminishing returns, such as no point in changing the oil and filter every thousand miles or some nonsense like that, but I just seek the happy medium that is best for my car and situation.

And one of the conclusions I've reached, based on the information here, tells me to be that if I'm using a royal purple filter, I can just concentrate on changing only the oil every four or five thousand miles and change the filter every other change period OR drop down to a lesser quality filter and continue to change both.

But the question I have there is, if I change the filter every other oil change, aren't I left with a bunch of dirty oil in the filter the second time around and starting off my oil change with oil dirtier than it has to be? Or is that amount so little that it makes no difference?
 
Ultra appears great with all I see and read.
I worry a tiny piece of the wire backing could break off and go to the engine.
I guess it would be .00000001% chance...........or hope it's that low
 
Originally Posted by MichaelRS
But the question I have there is, if I change the filter every other oil change, aren't I left with a bunch of dirty oil in the filter the second time around and starting off my oil change with oil dirtier than it has to be? Or is that amount so little that it makes no difference?


Honda has been doing the filter change every two OCIs for a very long time. The amount of left over oil isn't going to hurt anything if you're doing regular on-time OCIs. And if your using an efficient filter then the left over oil should be pretty clean to start with.
 
Originally Posted by 69Torino
I am blessed to have cars that are nice to oil, a Hyundai Lambda, (non GDI), a Ford 4.6 DOHC, and a Mazda 1.6 in our ‘92 Capri. Just sold our Freestyle with 308k on it, the Duratec also an engine that doesn't slaughter oil. The XTerrra I just purchased I am leery of, due to the small oil capacity and higher oil temps. I have had the valve covers off to replace gaskets and regretfully did not take pictures. At 134k it looks like it has twice the miles as it should. It's stained with varnish, not sludged, but still not as visually attractive as my other engines. When I bought the XTerra, the owner provided me with years of service records, and it had gotten Valvoline Maxlife every 3k-3.5k for many years at the Big O Tire shop in town.

So I do understand that some engines are simply easy on oil and some have a tendency to destroy it quickly. I worked on a lot of 2.7 V6's at Chrysler. What a nightmare.


I'm curious as to what oil and filter you're using in your Hyundai. Is this the 3.5L?
 
Originally Posted by JGmazda


I'm curious as to what oil and filter you're using in your Hyundai. Is this the 3.5L?

It's a 2008 Santa Fe, 3.3, All Wheel Drive. I've got exclusively Valvoline products in it. Oil and filter has been Maxlife 5W-30 and either a K&N PS-7022 cartridge or a NAPA Gold 7061.

Rear diff and transfer case are SynPower 75w-90, trans has been drained and filled every 30k with Maxlife ATF, coolant is Valvoline Asian Blue, and Maxlife ATF in the power steering.

My Marauder, XTerra and Capri have basically gotten the same treatment, except the Marauder gets Maxlife Full Synthetic 5W-30.



-unless I have gallons and gallons of clearance oil, then my daily driver gets that. It was my Freestyle, that I ran up to 308k, I now drive the XTerra. It's going to be on Rotella Gas Truck and Mobil Super for a long time.
 
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Originally Posted by 69Torino
Originally Posted by JGmazda


I'm curious as to what oil and filter you're using in your Hyundai. Is this the 3.5L?

It's a 2008 Santa Fe, 3.3, All Wheel Drive. I've got exclusively Valvoline products in it. Oil and filter has been Maxlife 5W-30 and either a K&N PS-7022 cartridge or a NAPA Gold 7061.

Rear diff and transfer case are SynPower 75w-90, trans has been drained and filled every 30k with Maxlife ATF, coolant is Valvoline Asian Blue, and Maxlife ATF in the power steering.

My Marauder, XTerra and Capri have basically gotten the same treatment, except the Marauder gets Maxlife Full Synthetic 5W-30.



-unless I have gallons and gallons of clearance oil, then my daily driver gets that. It was my Freestyle, that I ran up to 308k, I now drive the XTerra. It's going to be on Rotella Gas Truck and Mobil Super for a long time.


Thanks! Good to know! I have a 2012 Santa Fe that just came into the family with 80k. Going to use fram ultra for the cartridge filter. I'm a wix guy, but their wix filter, at least the cartridge unit, doesn't impress me.
Also going to stick with the super tech for oil as it did well in my Kia.
 
Back to the Ultra.

If you will sift through some of the past postings and UOA data I think you will find there is ample evidence the Ultra is more than capable of running 2 OCI per FCI with 15-20,000 as the FCI.

Unless your engine is really dirty, 5000-7500 will be underused (some will say grossly so), but I do understand the reluctance to jump right in.

My real concern with the Ultra right now is whether Trico is going to mess with it.
 
I used to run them for 2 10k ocis on my super duty 6.2 and posted several uoas...did fine.

I also used to run them for 2 15k ocis in my company Subaru's with the fb25 boxer 4. Also did fine there. Best filter money can buy imho and I've got uoas to prove good filtration and I cut and inspected them
 
Originally Posted by Ignatius
Originally Posted by MichaelRS

And why would anybody want to run their oil or their filter to the very last mile of its useful life? To save less than 80 bucks a year on an oil change or two?


Here are the reasons that I believe are why people do this:

1. Bragging rights, it means a lot on the internet.
2. They care too much about what other people think.
3. They are brutally cheap and think that they must get every penny out of their investment in a $10 oil filter.

I would happily run a Fram Ultra for 6000 miles on my Subaru and swap it out and think nothing of it. $10 is not a big deal for me, for some people a $30,000 vehicle is not a big deal but a $10 oil filter is something you would think that they would want to be clutching on to when they die and would write it into their will so it could be buried with them unabled to be pried out of their cold, dead hands.


Wow, what an ignorant straw-man argument. You've even snuck some Ad-hominem attacks in there as well. I bet you're fun at parties..


.. now, while I know there are those who do enjoy the bragging rights for a super long OCI on a site like this one, I would in no way put that anywhere close to the top of the list of reasons why someone would run a Fram Ultra out to 20,000 miles. IMHO, it's more of an 'extra' reason for some than anything else.

What would I say is the #1 reason why someone would run their oil and/or filter out to the last mile of it's intended lifespan?

- It's rated for it.

The important wording here is USEFUL life. If an oil filter is completely clogged/overloaded/in bypass at 20,000 miles, then I don't consider its useful life to be 20,000 miles. I'd consider its useful life to be much shorter. If a given motor oil is SHOT at 20,000 miles, with a TBN at or near 0, and a TAN quite a bit higher, then it is WAY past its useful life.

However, installed on an engine in good operating condition, after 20,000 miles, a Fram Ultra filter is virtually guaranteed to be none of the above. At 20,000 miles, it is absolutely within its 'useful life'.

But you're not talking about that. You're just faulting people for using a product in the way it was intended.
- "They are brutally cheap"
- "they would want to be clutching on to when they die and would write it into their will so it could be buried with them"


It's not a question of being 'cheap' - It's about buying a product that is designed to run MUCH longer, and actually using it in the way it was designed. Along the way we realize other benefits, including..

1 - Saving money that would otherwise be wasted by buying multiple filters
2 - Reducing the amount of hazardous waste being, at best, heaped upon an already taxed recycling system, and at worst, thrown into a landfill.


Just spitballing here, but I'd wager that on a clean-running engine, the average Fram Ultra filter probably has a useful life of at least 40,000 miles, although I am not aware of anyone who has actually left one on that long. Excepting the potential argument of the casing not being thick enough (which I disagree with), I'd say that the filter has been engineered WELL past it's stated 20,000 mile rating.



Do you replace light bulbs in your home when they're still putting out sufficient light, or do you replace them after they have stopped working?
What about the appliances in your home? Do you replace them when they are still working fine, or do you replace them when they start to show signs of failure?
When was the last time you replaced a headlight or taillight bulb on any of your cars before they stopped working?
 
Well said, ST -

I, too, understand that the "useful" life of most products we discuss is FAR longer than what most would believe.
I have successfully run dino ST lubes and various normal filters out to 10k and even 15k miles; no abnormal UOA results. No bad filters after dissection. No sludge under the valve covers. Etc.
"Normal" products have a usable range that far exceeds where most fear to tread. Premium products? Even more so.

I do NOT, in any manner, advocate for blind obedience in pushing out the OFCIs without first understanding several things:
- base line results of "normal" application - without knowing where you're at, how can you know where you're going?
- slow, methodical extensions are preferred over hyper-excited jumps
- a combination of tools (UOAs, PCs, visual observations) is better than a limited approach
- knowledge of the tools mentioned above; got to know the benefits and limitations of each
Extending OFCIs is a very pragmatic thing to do, IF one understands how to do them correctly and safely. The key is to find the threshold of "normal" and then dial back just a tad. That threshold is NOT the same thing as impending doom; do not confuse the two.

I ran many repetitive UOAs/PCs on my 4.6L Fords. Decided that 10k miles on dino oil and EG or TG filters was perfectly safe, and even 15k miles was safe as a "oops I forgot" margin. The proof is so solid that I don't even bother doing UOAs at 10k miles any longer; there's nothing new to learn. Sold those two cars to my son. Now just starting my experimentation on my 3.5L Taurus' (Taurii? Taurussessessessess?)

One mans "cheap insurance" is another mans "total waste of money".
 
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