Sunday, December 16, 2018

If you change your own oil, check this out

There are really only three companies in the world that produce oil filters, and then other companies buy them and put their name on them.  My mechanic buddies would always tell me to avoid Fram and buy a Wix filter.  In their words, the Fram filters were cardboard crap.  This video explains oil filters better than my buddies could.  After all, a picture is worth a thousand words.



I've been putting Wix filters on the bike.  Since the car is under warrantee, it gets whatever filters the dealership puts in.  But once I start changing that oil as well, it'll be getting a Wix.

3 comments:

p2 said...

standard practice in the aboation world of recip engines is to cut open the used filter when you change oil. about every 50 flight hours or so... this lets you see what kind of wear youre getting. there are acceptable limits for how much of each type of metal debris. there is a filter cutter for doing this....looks like a tubing cutter on steroids. i cut my trucks filter regularly just to keep an eye on things. but if mybtruck engine quits, i just pull over. if the bugmasher engine quits, things get a bit more exciting.

Ragin' Dave said...

Yep. And most places that service cars/motorcycles use crap parts and crappy lube & oil. I use AmsOil in the motorcycle, a Wix filter, and it costs me about $50. Cheapest place to do the work for me in VA was $75, and the crap they used burned up after 3k miles. I changed the AmsOil after 5k miles, and it looked like I could have put another 5K on it without issue.

Cheaper price, better products, and you actually know what's going on with your vehicle.

p2 said...

just a side note.... even if you dont put miles on it... your oil is absorbing acids from combustion byproducts and heat. it'll corrode things, albeit more slowly... thats were the 3k or 3 months comes in. good idea to pull the plugs outta the cylinders and have a look inside too... you can get a decent borescope unit almost anywhere for less than a hundred bucks.... just wait till the thing colls down or you melt down the camera end...