actually bear you have a way inflated idea of what the federal law says, they CAN deny warranty for using parts they determine are substandard and FRAM has been shown to be substandard by many tests. I am sorry you think they are great, wonderful, I am sorry you don't understand the law but I have personally been involved with denying warranty claims based on substandard parts being used. The law says you can not deny warranty for using after market it does NOT say you can't determine when something doesn't meet standards and thus are not protecting the vehicle. Example of this would be if you have some old oil from 1980 with the API rating appropriate for that year say SH but your vehicle calls for SM rating. They can NOT deny warranty for using other brand oil but they darn well can deny it for using oil that doesn't meet the specifications required. Same thing IF a manufacture has determined that a particular filter doesn't meet what THEY want for min specs for burst rating, filter rating, flow rating they darn well CAN deny warranty based on that filter being used.

 

does walmart sell motorcraft????????

 

Yes they do, at least around here.

 

thats good ive always used fram oil filters an never had a problem with them,but if this many people hate them maybe its time for a change

 

I'm in your boat, tjthegreat. I had used Fram filters without problems for years. But between firsthand accounts and the Great Oil Filter Writeup a few years ago pushed me to change. I figure the extra buck or buck-fifty that a Motorcraft FL-1A costs over a Fram PH-8A is cheap insurance...especially since I don't really put enough miles on my truck to need to change the oil more than twice a year.

Or maybe I shouldn't admit to that....now I'M probably gonna get flamed for not changing every three months!

Pat

 

Fram will probably get you 200K+ miles on your vehicle. But compared to about any other brand, you are paying too much for your Fram. It's all the sponsorship and executive pay that costs you, not the filtering media.

A few months ago my brother and I had a couple of hours to kill. He has always been a big Fram user. We were cleaning up the shop and had about six different Fram filters laying around, all different numbers. As odds would have it, we had the same filters as the Frams, except they were other manufacture's equivalent and they were all different manufactures. I cut each one open to measure the square inches of filtering media and construction equality. There were name brand filters and economy filters. IN EACH CASE, the Fram has less media and the construction of the filter was just a lot cheaper. My brother learned something that day and will not buy Fram any longer. Try it for yourself to see who builds the better filter. (with the possible exception of oil filters for Ford diesels)

 

so motorcraft is the way to go then???

 

Motorcraft or KNN if you can stomach the $$...

 

just went to walmart today and funny thing is the motorcraft oil filter is 20 cents cheaper than the fram

 

I have a filter cutter and use it all the time. Here is the disection and comment of a Motocraft filter in my Gallery. They are okay but would not say they are superior than the average Fram. They both have their plus and minus to them.



In my experience the Mobil 1 filter has the most media in it but there is so much crammed in there it restricts flow. They have the heavy case for a reason. Sure a Fram has less total filtration area but it is much more than you need. The dirtiest filter I ever cut open was a 10 year old Fram on a Chevy 396. It had a bunch of carbon, dirt and silicone stuck in it but it still had a long ways to go before it it's flow could have been restricted. About 1/10 of the pleats were covered. 90% was still open to flow.

 

Ten years ago they probably made a decent filter..............

 

actually closer to 25 to 30 yrs ago they were about or slightly above average, that changed when they sold out the company.

 

My point is Fram oil, air and fuel filters are just fine for what they are for. They are not going to disolve, collapse blow up or not filter if you leave one in place more than 3 months.

I hate to admit it but in my 1987 F150 with an injected 5.0 (302) I let the oil change get past me a couple times. I have used Mobil-1 10-30 since I started to have to buy my own oil and buy my own cars. I dipped it once a month and it was always right in the safe zone and so nice and clean I just never thought about how long it was in there. One day I threw it on my friends rack to grease it and noticed the date and milage on my filter. It was 15 months and about 16,000 miles. I sliced that Fram open and inspected it. There was some sediment in the bottom but no metal or anything bad. That truck towed 6500 pounds over some pretty big hills (4500 to 5000rpm steady for up to 30 minutes at a time to keep up with the 460's I traveled with) during the summer and got driven in the sand dunes year round as that's where we play when we were not gone racing.

Honestly I judge a good filter from a bad one by it's micron rating and for performance applications by how big the feed holes are the filter base. AC, Wix, Hastings, Purolator all make a good filter but the flow rate through them is terrible. Fram and Motocraft flow the best so that's what I usually buy.

If you want to see a really cheap filter look at a Penzoil filter. I'm guessing they are built by Fram but to a much lower specification than the regular Fram.

I protect my expensive race engines with only Fram filters. Everything else gets Fram or Motocraft. What ever is on sale

 

wat kind of oil do u guys use?

 

depends on the vehicle, wifes expy I just switched to mobil 1 5w-20, my PSD Rottella 15w-40(in the winter I run 5w-40 and I may switch to devlac soon) my race engine royal purple type 41 race oil. I have used valvoline a lot too.