Watch out for Mopar filters, some of them are made by FRAM.

The Purolator PureOne I mention earlier has a sandpaper grip and is a great filter.


Basically.
Motorcraft=Purolator . Good.
K&N=Mobil 1. Good.
Napa Gold=WIX Good.

That's just off the top of my head.

 

I use Mobil 1 and their filters. Sometimes i will get another synthetic like castrol if I can get it with a Mobil 1 or K&N filter.

I pretty much go by what filters go with the synthetic when they have their specials.

I couldn't pass up the Castrol Edge buy with the Fram Toughguard filter. Castrol has a 7 dollar rebate. And i can go back to Autozone the next day and exchange the Fram for a Bosch (they are the same price at 6.99).

Bosch is the same as a napa filter.

 

For some people who may not know carquest and napa filters are both manufactured at the same place. They are both wix filters. I've used carquest filters quite a bit, I've used the bosch filter and the mopar filters as well. The bosch were really nice! Just seemed like a much heavier filter. The mopar ones have always done me well. But for price, the best bang for the buck is the carquest/napa filters. They are pretty dang good.


The royal purple vid was interesting to watch, props to whoever posted that was pretty informative.

As for the mileage. Well, I change mine every 3k. No more then 3500 miles. Some will say that it is stupid and outrageous, to me its an opinion thing. You got yours, and I got mine.

I will say this much though. Now I work at a GM dealership. We have since I've been there done extensive motor work on...

3 - Buick Enclaves
9 - GMC Acadia's
2 - GMC Sierra's

Now, here's where it gets interesting. What do all of those vehicles have in common? Mileage. All of them were below 65k. One Acadia that we had to re-do the motor the person went 20k on its oil from when they bought it. I call that ''break in'' oil that's just me. At 26k miles were tearing into the motor.

In 2011, GM started using DEXOS. Which is kind of a synthetic, supposed to be an oil that you change every 6k miles. I've seen more of those come in with black gritty oil then anything. Imagine having 15k miles on your new truck and this is only its second oil change? Drop the filter into the drain cart and you can feel the grit. Now you can't tell me that is healthy! Of course this is GM crap... I mean that's bad enough of course s*it going to go south lol

But anyways getting back on track. That's just some of the things I get to see on a daily basis. Changing your oil is much more important then the average person thinks. Heck my truck has 211k on it and its the original motor with no signs of slowing down. Proper maintenance is so crucial.

 

I think that the filters can't outlive the oil, that is the problem. WHich is why I go 3K on oil changes. Sometimes it is longer because I get a bit lazy. But no more than 500-1000 miles over 3K.

QUESTION: Has anyone gone with a TALLER filter than the stock ones for our trucks? I know that mobil 1 sells a taller filter for our trucks. I would buy that for my 2001 (used to for my 1996) but my cali truck lacks clearance and the filter would be danger close to my precats.

More filter area may help.

 

Like I said before, two filter changes (plus topping off) for every oil change.

 

Just bought a Mopar for the 96 5.2 at the dealer. $4. Looks like a well made filter, heavy, all metal, no plastic spring like FRAM, etc. Will tear it apart when the next oil change is due and have a better look but at this point I'd say they're fine.

The reason you will hear that filters work better after a while is because as the media is plugged up a bit they will trap more of the smaller particles; the other trapped particles begin to form what effectively is a finer mesh in the media.

You have to be a bit careful when reading things like "traps down to 12 microns" or "2 microns" or whatever; that number by itself isn't valuable because all reasonably fit-for-the-purpose oil filters trap some sub 2 micron particles, and all will pass some bigger ... that could be a 20 micron particle ... first pass. If you ever see an SAE test pretty much all filters will have a few 40 micron particles get by the filter.

The question is how much do they allow to pass, and what size, because none are going to get them all.

There is an SAE test for oil filter media. The box should tell you the first pass efficiency (what % it got the first time through) and the mult-pass efficiency (what it will get when filtering the same oil multiple times, ie on a running engine) and at what micron level those are based on.

Filter claims should tell you the Beta ratio ... that's where they put x amount of contaminants in oil, mount the filter in a test fixture, and measure what amount of contaminants are left in the oil after that one pass. But you probably will have to go to a website, or eMail, to get that info.

A Beta 75 filter rated at 3 microns means there were 75 particles of 3 microns or greater in the oil before the filter for every one 3 micron particle or greater that remained after one pass through the filter.

Obviously you can see that the "3 micron" filter allows particles of somewhere between 3 microns and perhaps 40 microns to go back into the engine, awaiting another pass and another chance at removing it and 74 of it's brothers, leaving a 76th to go back and see if it can find 74 more friends for another kick at the cat.

A Beta 75 3 micron filter is 98.66% effective per pass. But be careful of the % number, or more exactly, don't be too impressed by how near it is to 100; a Beta 200 / 3 micron filter is only 1% more efficient, but removes three times as many 3 micron or bigger particles on a single pass.

What would be better ... a Beta 75 filter rated at 3 microns or a beta 200 filter rated at 10 microns?

The Beta 75/3 will pass (about) 3 particles of 3 microns or greater for every single particle of 10 microns or greater the Beta 200 /10 will. If you believe the factory, particles under 10 microns are not supposed to be harmful to the engine. Others say they are. Which one would you buy?

Filters tested to ISO 16889 are repeatedly tested at different beta ratios; 2, 10, 75, 100, 200 and 1000. Ask your filter manufacturer for that data; he probably has it, so if he won't offer it to you, ask him why not.

The biggest problem with auto oil filters is it's extremely competitive (many products of similar quality) and you can't actually be sure who makes your filter; some brands are made by more than one manufacturer, depending on the filter model, and some OEM filters are available under different part #'s with different construction but the same make + model cross-reference.

Also, the aftermarket is in a lot of flux; companies change hands, contracts don't get renewed, manufacturing gets consolidated for one market at one factory, manufacturing is always moving offshore. It's hard to say definitely who makes what, and even if you're right, two years from now it could be different.

 

i always run the bigger filter,used the fram PH8A for years with never a problem.also used the bigger NAPA filter,i think the part number for it is "1717".after reading this thread i think im done with the fram's though.

 

It's not that big of a deal on our motor's because of the angle of the filter. But, one reason they started using smaller filter's is/was because the smaller filter takes less time to fill on initial start up. And a bigger filter just means more oil capicity, not better filtering.

 

Huh??? Do you stay awake at night dreaming stuff like this up? The filter is already full on start-up, so where you came up with that horse-pucky is beyond me.

 

It is on our motors, "BECAUSE OF THE ANGLE"! Not ALL motors have the filter in that orientation.