I am meticulous about machine maintenance and thought Wix filters are quality. I have noticed recently spin-on Wix filters are loose in the box with no plastic seal over the opening. Taking into consideration the purpose of a filter I am not sure this is a good idea. I might go to Donaldson. Any opinions?
WIX is a commodity filter, to me it's middle of the pack, but for fleets they have excellent pricing. I am not a fan of Baldwin, do like Fleetguard. I love Donaldson myself, but as always YMMV.
Unless the filter (or box) looks like it rode on the back of an open bed truck across a South Texas dirt road for 200 miles, I am not sure I would worry. I can remember when all filters (back when my father owned several NAPA stores) came loose in a shipping crate, nothing covering them, never knew of an engine oil related failure due to debris in the filter. My family has been farming and dirt racing for 60 years and only one filter related engine failure when a filter shell separated (several failures when no oil was put back in). My personal preference (if not using the equipment manufactures filters) is Donaldson over Wix. I used Donaldson, Baldwin, Wix and of course NAPA (they were free) if I could not obtain a equipment manufacturers filter when I needed it and never gave it a second thought, plastic seal or not. I would tell to use whatever gives you the confidence to drive it like you stole it, especially the Hellcat or Shelby , I know I could not own one, tires would be too expensive.
CatToy, Your last paragraph is funny! Believe it or not that Shelby has 1500 easy miles. The Hellcat has 180 miles. They are garage queens. I'm saving them for my daughter's for when they turn 50. They have a way to go.
Personally I wouldn't use Wix filters if I was given them, and neither would I consider Fleetguard - I've had too many bad experiences over the years to think that the issues I had with them could be classed as one-offs. Donaldson are the class of the field if you are looking at non-OEM filters IMHO.
NAPA filters which are pretty much the same as Wix come with the oil filters loose in the box but the fuel filters are usually wrapped in plastic if they are made by Wix, or sealed some other way often when Wix buys some oddball filter from the OEM for rebadging.
at thewaste company i work for Cat filters go on cats, donaldson on the volvo's due to there cost, and all the garbage trucks run baldwins , baldwins are cheap and thin but we have never had a failure due to filtration or filter breaking , Castrol tection 15w40 run in all engines
I know most folks think that OEM are always more expensive, I have found around here, Kubota and Link Belt branded air and hydraulic filters much cheaper than aftermarket. Oil and fuel not so much...
I appreciate all of the comments. I have a few Wix left and it's Donaldson. I need a source for them. Everyone have a great week.
Have you seen used ones cut open to have reasons for this? Just curious. I use mainly Fleetguard; I've been told CNH filters are black painted Fleetguard, and my local Cenex stocks a pretty good selection of Fleetguard as well. Napa filters are Wix, I have to agree they appear cheap by the packaging.
If you are referring to Wix I've seen both new and old ones cut open and was less than impressed. cheap & nasty is how I would describe them. My experience with Fleetguard is varied but all negative, from things like lack of filtration efficiency versus claimed to leaching the metal casing of the filter at system operating temperature. Again - not impressed. At my last job we ended up changing from OEM to Fleetguard engine oil filters as a result of "competitive tendering" (read - what's the cheapest?) and within less than 6 months we could see a difference in oil analysis results. We used that as a technical justification to switch back. There are often comments made regarding how "oh, even OEM filters are made by one of the major filter manufacturers, so what's the difference.?" What a lot of people don't realise is that although OEM filters are obviously not manufactured by the OEM they are pretty much 100% of the time manufactured to a proprietary OEM design, and that design is usually very different internally from the same aftermarket "will fit" filter produced by the same filter manufcturer in the same factory as the OEM filter despite the fact that the two filters may look identical from the outside.
One of our field service guys needed a fuel filter for a breakdown so went to the local filter shop. They sold him a cheap filter (possibly called sakura, not sure now). A couple of days later it was leaking from the seal. It turns out that the threads had been cut too big and the filter came loose. When I went off at the supplier they seemed quite offended and said, it's OK, we'll give you a new one! I replied, what if it had been an oil filter on a $100,000 engine?
Back to the tried & trusted saying - "good quality fluids & filters are the cheapest and best insurance policy you will every buy for your machine".
FRAM used to be the bad guy filter, and we all started using WIX...and I have cut open numerous filters over the years and WIX (or Napa gold) are not the problem children in my opinion. I get very concerned about the cheap filters at Walmart (FRAM) or even worse, the house brand filters at AutoZone. I have been having success at the inexpensive PRONTO brand cabin air filters (consequence of failure in minimal), and got a couple of cases of filters (air, hydraulic, fuel, oil) from Rock Auto closeouts, Wix made, CarQuest labeled to fit my JD 450B Shovel Dozer. My drain pans get run through the parts washer between uses so each oil drainage can be examined, all suspect filters get cut open to check for clogging, metal bits, soot and the like. I usually only have to rebuild motors after someone ELSE maintained them for years. On my list of worries, failure of WIX filters is pretty low...now the crap that local discount oil change place installs along with the budget bulk lubricating oil? That will make me listen for the lower end knock. Howard
Oh boy...I need to eat some crow on my last post. I had a crew up here this last week doing some heavy work I have been too busy for...sometimes my day job gets in the way. Anyhow, I brought in a 74 year old operator, who has worked up here from time to time, but REALLY knows his equipment. He starts using my JD 450B shovel dozer HARD...and after a few hours reports the steering clutches are hard to pull. We complete the work with him complaining about elbow discomfort. Yesterday, after the crew had left, I get to looking into the issue. The EARLY 450B had a separate pump and tank for the steering clutches, the later ones use transmission pump, sump and filter. There is a hydraulic regulating valve that splits high pressure off to the steering clutches...hmmm. Could the off-branded, discount, closeout filter not have enough flow or not bypassing correctly to get full pressure to the steering actuators? Put fresh filter on and steering clutch actuators start working again, cut open old filter, and find some dirt and fuzz, not serious, but has a sticking rubber diaphragm for the bypass. Stopped at Deere yesterday and got their branded filters at under $6 each. I think I am going to simply throw out the entire lot of off brand filters and move forward! Howard
I can only repeat what I posted above. As a generality I will use Donaldson filters quite happily, apart from that it's OEM unless some practical experience comes to light that suggests a certain brand of filter works well in a certain situation. The problem with those one-offs situations that within a fairly short space of time you can't remember what you used in what situation and you only end up confused......
We always know what we should have done... And I have to wonder...how do the discount auto chains selling mainly house brand filters and the quick change car oil change places get by using "value engineered" filters without claims for damage? Howard
Donaldson, Fleetguard and Hengst filters are the nr.1 supplier in the ag industries.. and there is not much that can go wrong with using filters off them in my opinion. But sometimes filters can be made with manufactures specifics. For example the variofilter on the Fendt Vario is a Hengst filter, but if you order the replacement from Donaldson or Fleetguard you'll see the webbing is different and sometimes they do give faults. so there are a few situations where OEM might be better.
BuMach, If I was you I'd be very careful about pinning my reputation on Fleetguard filters. Also I agree with you 100% regarding the equivalent from a filter manufacturer for an OEM Part Number, even if the same filter manufacturer manufactures the OEM Part Number. The OEM filter is manufactured to an OEM design, I will almost guarantee that the "will fit" equivalent from the filter manufacturer is of a different design internally. Your experience bears this out. See posts on Page 1...... Howard, I also have no idea how the discount lube places are not flooded with claims. Maybe it shows how convervative the manufacturer-recommended oil/filter change periods are, and also maybe how well modern auto engines are designed, or possibly a combination of both. Also when you think about it there is no comparison between the duty cycle for a private vehicle and that of a piece of construction equipment.
In the newer machines it's about micron size, make sure your aftermarket filters are to spec for your application.
I guess the closest thing we get to construction equipment duty cycle on automotive applications would be taxi and police duty. NYC Medallion taxi cabs have a lifespan of approximately 14 months from new to junk. Consumer Reports once did an oil study using one of the fleets, measuring internal engine wear. In six months they ran enough miles to replicate a vehicle's normal life span. I suspect they use a better quality filter! Howard
Two words: "Prove it" As long as the filter itself does not have a catastrophic failure it's highly unlikely there will be many, if any, successful claims.
Very true. It's the same thing about aftermarket parts of any type and "invalidating warranty". Unless the aftermarket part can be conclusively proved to have been the root cause of the failure there is no reason in law for the vehicle/equipment manufacturer to deny any warranty claim. It's been proved in court enough times on both sides of the pond.
on the other hand, I have seen many filters fail, and normally the internal element is severly distorted. Even if a filter clogs and the bypass opens, we will NOT see engine damage. It is only when the filter will NOT hold oil OR not allow oil to flow through the filter and those conditions should be painfully obvious. There was an early jet fighter, F-84 IIRC that had the single engine at the tail and a LONG tube to the dashboard and a MECHANICAL gauge. That tube would leak down and get air bubbles, and of course need to be bleed before it would work again. So the pilots would ignore the gauge, since it never read properly...they went through many planes and even more engines until they fixed the problem. I got this story from a retired McDonnell Aircraft engineer. He was there before they bought Douglas...In THAT type of case, loss of oil pressure might not be apparent. And for many years, American cars only had idiot lights for the oil pressure, and in "idiot, you just blew your engine" Bit I am digressing...I now have a trashcan of filters, sold as Wix private brand, marked CARQUEST for the engine and transmission of the 450B. I pulled the bad stock yesterday and replaced them with the dealer supplied OEM. Howward
I would guess they pay out very little for the fallen out drain plugs, and wrong amount of oil that they do all the time. Probably almost never have to pay for a bad filter, as Hetkind said, the filter element can be missing and there won't be any terrible damage in 3,000 miles, if they remembered to put some oil back in, that is.
A big name corporate shop and we just bought a motor in a 2 year old Mercedes due to a filter failure. A peice of the felt gasket apparently brome loose and clogged up some goodies in the valve train.
I have a John deer 5510 at work with a manual tranny but the trans sump and rear end is all the HYD supply also . So I decided to go cheap route on a napa gold filter power steering and HYD got all jerky and didn't want to work hardly at all. Went to dealer after a little thinking got a JD filter cured problem instantly , now on my next service I will try a Donaldson as I get 60 percent discount if it don't work rite that one I'll stay OEM filters. Figured I would post an example of application design vs one size fits
Sounds expensive for a filter failure...