Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2010 22:47:22 -0600
Reply-To: Tom Hargrave <thargrav@HIWAAY.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Tom Hargrave <thargrav@HIWAAY.NET>
Subject: Re: Old Oil Filter Study
In-Reply-To: <586a66171001142021s21c77c57y349dcae16fb474b9@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
My point exactly - there is no telling who makes brand X, or any brand of
oil filters now. But I don't even trust the German oil filter manufacturers.
In my opinion, Fram is the worse and this is based on my own experience.
I used to buy whatever was lowest cost, usually Fram, until I picked one up
for my 77 Mercedes diesel. For those not familiar with Mercedes diesels, the
newer ones - from about 76 on - use a drop in cartridge that's composed of
two sections. One section is packed with what is best described as a
material that is the consistency of a dense roll of toilet paper. The other
section is conventional pleated paper. The filter is actually a combination
bypass filter that scrubs out very fine soot particles (the TP part) and a
standard full flow filter (the pleated part). The filter I bought had
pleated paper in both sections. I called their 800 number and the person on
the line insisted that the filter was manufactured to spec. I immediately
returned the filter for a refund and I opened a few others on the shelf -
they were all the same.
My concern was that by replacing the bypass part of the filter with pleated
paper they were completely undoing the benefits of the bypass filter. So,
instead of the bypass filter filtering out the fine soot particles, oil just
flowed through and was not being cleaned any better than the oil that flowed
through the main filter element. So, manufactured to spec???? I don't think
so!
Thanks,
Tom Hargrave
256-656-1924
Our Web Sites:
www.kegkits.com <http://www.kegkits.com/>
www.stir-plate.com <http://www.stir-plate.com/>
www.andyshotsauce.com <http://www.andyshotsauce.com/>
From: Bob Stevens [mailto:mtbiker62@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2010 10:21 PM
To: Tom Hargrave; Vanagon Mailing List
Subject: Re: Old Oil Filter Study
That was one of my curiosities while reading this thread. If I go back even
20 years,
I began wondering who makes the filters now? Who was it mentioned the
definition
of NAFTA: "big sucking sound of jobs going offshore." Well, our vans started
there
and it sounds like the German filters are still pretty reliable as far as
that research
goes, but I began wondering about China, etc. for cheap labor/materials
related to
current quality of the "same-name-brand" that I may have begun using years
earlier.
I appreciated the detail of the project about measuring paper surface
comparisons,
and the quality of the paper itself; springs vs tension tabs for oil return
valves;
robustness of the metal can itself, etc.
bob
On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 9:14 PM, Tom Hargrave <thargrav@hiwaay.net> wrote:
The most interesting thing I get from this study it is that my oil filter
has most likely changed over the years.
In other words, a customer's strong loyalty to a certain oil filter is
worthless.
Thanks,
Tom Hargrave
256-656-1924
Our Web Sites:
www.kegkits.com
www.stir-plate.com
www.andyshotsauce.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM] On Behalf Of
Bob Stevens
Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2010 7:44 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Old Oil Filter Study
http://minimopar.knizefamily.net/oilfilters/reference.html
