Outside of this forum, I've not witnessed personaly a torn Motorcraft, but I did see years ago much fraying on Purolator PurOne filters in a GM 2.4 Ecotec in my Pontiac Soltice and stopped using them. I moved to Supertechs and they held up much better.
I tore apart a used Fram XG cartridge filter from my Jeep. It took a pair of vice grips and pliars and LOTS of force to tear the pleats apart. I was shocked at how strong they were. The media itself was strong, but it was extremely well bonded to a monofiliment-like mesh.
Some are made stronger than others. That's just a fact. I'll be pulling apart a Mobil 1 filter soon that will have over 7k on it and probably over 8k. I run my Jeep pretty hard, with lots of throttle excursions to the highest rpm range of the Pentastar, so these filters haven't been babied.
I will say this, though. While I only had 2k on it, the OEM Mopar, which I'm certain is a Purolator, held up fine. The pleats, however, were nowhere near as strong as the XG. Of course they aren't backed by anything, either, but the media itself isn't as strong, even without considering the mesh backing in the XG.
I ran FL500S and FL400S filters for a good while in my Jeep 3.8 and Ford 3.5. I never had a known issue, but the bad press makes you wonder if they all held up. A couple of the 3.5 filters went 10k, too. I now run XG's in both vehicles. I'd expect that the odds are good that those MC filters held up, but seeing torn examples shakes the confidence. I've not one time on this forum or anywhere else seen an example of a torn XG or M1. I certainly know why with the M1.
This is why I greatly prefer cartridge filters. You can inspect every one of them.
Thanks OP for posting this. It at least tells us that they probably hold up at least most of the time. I hope they do all the time, really, but I don't think we've seen that.
