[diamond mike]

i just read some old archive stuff about fram filters, i must say, i NEVER had any idea they were that crappy! i been using them my entire adult life, but boy ill tell you, NEVER AGAIN after some of the things i read about them

[diamond mike]

im just glad i didnt use em on my fresh rebuilt 454 sitting in garage , scheduled for insto next week!

[04SilveradoMykk]

What specifically are you referring to? I know Fram/Autolite is bad, mainly just the plane jaine oil filters.

[S10 Racer]

Originally Posted by diamond mike

i just read some old archive stuff about fram filters, i must say, i NEVER had any idea they were that crappy! i been using them my entire adult life, but boy ill tell you, NEVER AGAIN after some of the things i read about them

Yeap, had my share of them and never again will one grace my garage door. They do make good targets for sighting in your deer rifle though

[4 Jaw Chuck]

I've used Fram filters for 22 years without a single issue, don't believe everything you read on the internet son.

I once opened a new case of Purolator filters when I worked in a local automotive store and every one had a teaspoon of shotblasting media in them, I noticed it as I came to the bottom of the case and it had a layer of media on the bottom. I mentioned it to my employer and he gave a dirty look and told me to just put them on the shelf. 24 people got filters full of shotpeen balls that week!

Quality control is crap across the entire industry, Fram is just like all the rest...thats what happens when production is more important than quality.

I suggest you give the ones you buy a good looking over before you install it...no matter what brand you buy, I blow every one out with an airhose before it goes into my vehicles. I've seen bugs, cardboard pieces, bits of plastic and hot glue come out...you name it. I even had a fancy brand (12 bucks each!) oil filter come out of the box with the right part number silk screened on it and the proper can size but the wrong threaded cap spun locked on it.

Arguing that Fram filters are crap compared to eveyone elses makes about as much sense as saying Melitta makes better filtering coffee filters than Bunn. I can't tell the difference, I doubt you could either.

[small block marine]

I Personally Have Never Had Any Problems,although I Will Say We All Spend Alot Of Money And Spare No Expense When It Comes To Quality Parts The Oil Filter Should E No Different. I Use The K-n Filter On My Engine. If I Didnt Use K-n I Would Only Use Ac. I Work At A Gm Dealership And I Recieved A Bulliten About Counterfit Filters. The Bulliten Stated That The Welds In The Top Of The Filter And The Welds On The Knock Offs Were Different. I Was In Wal-mart Shortly After That And Found A Knock Off There. I Suggest Everyone Inspect Your Filters. Too Much Invested To Take Frams,ac, K-n Or Any Other Companies Filters For Granted

[sunsetdart]

I agree that never take anything on the internet to be "gods honest truth". If you happen to watch or see the top fuel funny cars or dragsters, they all have the Fram giant oil filters on them. If Fram made crap oil filters, would those teams trust using them on a $85,000 motor? I have used Fram for all my cars and have never had a problem.

[poncho62]

I have to agree with Chuck..........I have used Frams my whole life.....I do buy the good line of the Frams, not the regular ones......I have always heard these stories about less oil pressure with them. My truck has always had just medium oil pressure (40 psi running hot).....Last year, I got a deal on some Wix racing filters at a swap meet ($5 each), so thought...OK, put one of them on and see more oil pressure.....Guess what, exactly the same.

[ericnova72]

I'll disagree with Chuck and Poncho, I have personally seen Fram filters filtering media collapse in on themselves internally and restrict oil flow. If we hadn't been running blocked oil bypasses on both engines we never would have known.

Engines were shut of with good pressure and then had poor to zero pressure showing when restarted the next day. Both owners were in a panic, fearing spun bearings or other damage, and one was ready to pull the engine rather than believe his Fram filter was the culprit.

It doesn't happen with every Fram filter, but seems to happen across the Internet enough to get noticed. Where there is smoke, there is usually fire. Wix, NAPA Gold, or K&N for me.

[k-star]

Some of the guys reading this will be to young to remember this. Back in the 70's Ford built a car called the Pinto. My sister and brother-in-law owned 2 of them. A hatch back and a wagon. These little cars had a small problem when they were rear ended. Many of them would blow up or catch on fire due to the placement of the gas tank. Neither one of those cars my sister owned ever blew up. So i guess following the fram filter logic i could say there never was a problem because my sisters never blew up????

There is alot of real bad info on the net. The fram filter info is not some of it. I have first hand dealings with the fram filters. I did not read it on another site or pass along something that happened to my uncles,brother's mom...

I have had issues with them 3 different times. This is a real problem and it's not made up.

If you run a fram filter on a engine with a non-blocked bypass you will never know that you have a filter issue. The by-pass will open, all the un-filtered oil will flow through the engine and you will never know the difference.


Don't make the misatke of thinking that beacuse they run them on 8000hp fx cars that it's the same filter you are buying at wall-mart, because it isn't. Plus not to many of us are driving 8000 hp engines around everyday. it's a totally different applications.

Keith

[Jim Rockford]

Plus the fact that they tear down and rebuild those engine after every run, hell they could get away with NO oil filter at all, but facts are facts, frams are junk.
See for yourself.

http://people.msoe.edu/~yoderw/oilfi...lterstudy.html

Fram Extra Guard PH8A

This filter cartridge has a small outside diameter with a rather low filter element surface area (193 sqin), and features cardboard end caps that are glued in place. The rubber anti-drainback valve seals the rough metal backplate to the cardboard end cap and easily leaks, causing dirty oil to drain back into the pan. If you have a noisy valve train at startup, this filter is likely the cause. The bypass valves are plastic and are sometimes not molded correctly, which allows them to leak. The backplate has smaller and fewer oil inlet holes, which may restrict flow. The telltale signs for a Fram Extra Guard are: It has 8 small holes for the oil inlet and a thin, cheap looking backplate, and is currently stamped with a "2Y". There are 5 very small crimps holding the gasket in place. If you look into the center hole all the way to the top of the filter, you will see a kind of "button" in the end cap of the cartridge (which looks like it's made of metal from there). This is the plastic bypass valve.


Fram Double Guard DG8A
This is one of the most expensive filters you can buy. Inside is a basic Fram Extra Guard (PH8A) filter element that has larger diameter holes at the end and has been pre-oiled. You can see this in the picture above (far left). I assume this is to hold the Teflon particles in the filter element before the unit is installed. Don't put Teflon in your engine. It does not belong there! DuPont does not recommend using their Teflon product in internal combustion engines.

Although it has the lowest filter element surface area (193 sqin), it does have a clever spring-loaded nitrile rubber anti-drainback valve and bypass valve combination.

The telltale signs for a Fram Tough Guard filter are: It has a better backplate that is usually shiny, with six larger holes for the inlet and 6 spot welds around the them. The backplate should be stamped with a "1K". There are 6 large crimps holding the gasket in place. The anti-drainback valve diaphragm behind the inlet holes is black. If you look into the center hole all the way to the top of the filter, you will not see the "button" in the end cap of the cartridge (which looks like it's made of metal from there).

[4 Jaw Chuck]

You guys do realize this "study" (I use the term loosely!) that is so often quoted is 9 years old right?

As for filters collapsing while running blocked bypasses...well what can I tell ya. Warm it up before you drop the hammer duh! I used Fram filters on my Mazda Rotary's and they would run 120-150 psi when they were cold and could reach 8700 rpm...never one failure...of course I warmed the engine up first.

I cut every oil filter open after I remove it, it takes ten seconds on a regular 6" bench grinder to grind off the crimp on the cap to open them up...I still wonder to this day why they sell oil filter cutters when its so easy to open them this way.

I have seen the insides of most of the major brands, they all look the same, Is there more surface area in brand "A" compared to "B"? Maybe. I would question anyone who thinks that more filter surface area is required for a component that gets regularly replaced...none of the ones I've cut open even looked dirty. The dirt in the oil is suspended, the filter only gets large particles like metal bits etc...hence why I cut them open for a look see. If your oil filter gets plugged up with dirt you have more serious problems not related to the filter element area thats for sure!

The Fram filter has a cardboard flapper valve, actually cardboard is a really dumb uneducated way of saying composite fabric/paper product. This "flapper" valve has about as much in common with the cardboard box in your FedEx delivery parcel as the space shuttle ceramic tiles and a souvenir coffee cup from the Kennedy Space Center.

I have inspected these plastic popper style valves the competition uses, many I have seen were malformed and must have leaked like sieves in operation. If you think any of these plastic popper valves sees a human hand for flash removal before being processed into a filter...guess again. Most of the plastic bits I have blown out of filters is the flashing left over from the popper valve manufacturing process. the filter catches this stuff anyway so its a moot point.

You know, no one ever mentions the fact that oil often gets hotter than 250 degrees on occasion...especially when your towing in hot weather. Have you ever wonders what happens to plastic at these temps? How about a resin impregnated paper product soaked in oil?

Heres a test for you, take one of the popper valves and throw it in the oven at 275F and see what happens. What is its strength at this temp? Wonder what happens when you add 80 PSI of pressure to the equation? I get really tired of these armchair engineers that know squat about material properties particularly as they apply to a environment they know absolutely nothing about.

BTW the filter I mentioned that was mismanufactured with the wrong cap on the right canister was a K&N filter....and I would be surprised if any Top Fuel Funny car oil filter had anything more than a fine mesh stainless screen inside it.

Ahhhhh...who gives a hoot anyway, the internet is full of articles that appeal to the lowest common denominator...believe what you want.

[DoubleVision]

I myself don`t use Frams, I`ve always been faithful to AC Delco.
However, my father has always used Frams, still does. As mentioned already, when the bypass kicks in it`s not being filtered anyway and nobody knows the difference. When oil pressure reaches a certain pressure the bypass kicks in and the oil is unfiltered, so it made me wonder, out of 3000 miles, how many miles does the oil filter really have on it? My 4.3 V6 has 40 lbs oil pressure at idle, 60 at cruise, I think at both these pressures the bypass has long since activated so is my oil not being filtered the majority of the time?

[Jim Rockford]

Chuck, you beleive what you want, I will get the most filter for my money and that will not be with a POS rip off fram. I can't count how true the test was on antidrainback vlaves Many times i have seen import engines with timing chain rattle and valve train noise at start up due to a ****ty *** fram filter, once you installed a qaulity fiter on em , no more noise at start up. keep buying junk chuck.

[1ownerT]

I personally have seen on more than 1 occasion where changing out the basic Fram filter eliminated the cold start rattling. These were engines that called for anti drain back valves.