I'm new to heavy equipment world. What I'm looking for today is opinions on OE replacement filters or good aftermarket? And where is a good place to purchase these items? I've been looking on line and I'm seeing a large variation in pricing. Opinions and references please.....
Good quality fIlters and lubricants are the best insurance policy you'll ever buy. Trying to save a few cents on buying cheap could come back and bite you in the *** big-style. From personal experience stay away from Fleetguard, but thumbs up for Donaldson. Personally I'd never buy anything from NAPA.
Filterspro . com is the best place I've found for mail order filters. They stock a lot of Donaldson and Baldwin as cheap as you'll find them anywhere. Are we talking about an old skid steer or a new excavator? That makes a difference in whether to go OEM or aftermarket.
For my work place Cat gets OEM and everything else gets Donaldson As Nige said about NAPA that also goes with Wix as they make napa filters
Nige, What is your opinion on Baldwin Filters? Bob
TBH I've never used them (at least not as far as I'm aware) so have no opinion one way or the other. If I was ever to trial them it would have to be under very controlled conditions. It's a bit different in my line of work with engines costing around $250,000, and a total fleet value of somewhere the sunny side of $100 million. I'm sure you can see how we get very twitchy when the bean counters try to save a few cents by purchasing things like oil & filters based purely on price without looking at the bigger picture.
In the eighties and nineties when I was still turning wrenches, we would often cut open filters to compare internal components and quality, or as a matter of course checking for metal, etc. At that time at least, I would place Baldwin below Fleetguard and Wix in design and quality, as Nige says Donaldson is my top choice aside from OEM. CAT always gets CAT filters unless it's old enough to remember the 60's..... I remember ordering in OEM filters from Generac and getting in a spin on in a plain white box, spray painted flat black. If you held it up to the light you could read "NAPA" and the part number clearly through the flat black paint. OEM Quality, lol
Nige, do you have a story behind the dislike for NAPA? We use a fair amount of their filters because the store in town stocks a pretty good variety. I have a good source for Donaldson. Very price competitive, honestly the only thing that keeps me from going that route is the time to cross them all and stock them due to the trip into the big town to get them. If I ever catch up! My haul truck dislikes Baldwin fuel filters, 1/2 the life of Cat. On the 11, 7 and 5 I try to keep Cat filters on them. The owners wife tends to give me the stink eye if I get to carried away with filter stock on my service truck. I've yet to have an issue I can directly relate to a Wix or NAPA. Enlighten me wise one!! Junkyard
Thanks guys, I will ck out Filterspro.com. My machine is a little on the older side, 1976 case 450c. But I am real impressed with how good of shape it is in and starts up with a flick of the key.
Most of my companies garbage trucks run Baldwins. Air filters look very much like Donaldson but the spin on are very thin and lite We have never had a problem with them on macks other then an occasional leaker but I wouldn't run them on am expensive piece of equipment.
When it comes to NAPA I've had similar experiences to lantraxco. You cut one apart and look at the inside of it and all it screams at you is cheap & nasty ....... I wouldn't even fit one to my personal ride let alone a piece of machinery. An interesting comment often comes up regarding the fact that Donaldson manufacture many Cat OEM filters, so most people assume the Donaldson equivalent is the same filter that you can buy from the Cat house just painted a different colour and with a different number on it. Not so, as you'll find if you cut one apart, the Cat filter is a totally different design internally.
I bite the bullet and purchase all Cat filters. Never had a problem in 5K hours.
http://filterspro.com/results.cfm?manu=2&q=3 That is not a very user-friendly website. Do you have to deal with them entirely by phone? I couldn't find any cross references and it seems every Donaldson filter listed is over $100.
Best way to get cross-references for OEM to Donaldson is go to www.donaldson.com and plug your numbers in.
Thanks, Nige!
I use some NAPA filters , but on big tickets items I use oem. I am good friends with our local NAPA owner , we had a lengthy discussion about these filters. NAPA carries 3 different grades of filters. The NAPA GOLD is the top of the line. He only stocks these and told me the others were not good quality. I used one on the engine of my backhoe , I replaced a CAT filter. After the service life I keep both , opened them up and they were identical inside down to the part number under the screw on which is not visible unless opened up. This prompted more study on my part. Seems there are 3 filter manufactures in the world. And lots are the same but different colors. I also learned another thing. These instant oil change places , I used one for a season as I was busy. I decided to change the oil in my personal truck so I went to NAPA got my filter and Pennzoil. The filter the instant oil change place used was half the size just large enough to cover the seal.
Not sure how many know how the filter market works, apparently not enough, so for what its worth, I'll try to explain it as I've been told by Donaldson reps and also those that work within the plants, one near me. There are several grades of filters you can buy for most engines and machines, not sure today how many levels there are but years ago there were about three, top of the line or supposedly OEM, next one down or mid level and the cheapest one's you can buy. You can tell just by cutting them apart and looking at the filter itself inside each canister. All levels meet the standards set by the manufacturer, some at the higher spec level, the cheapest at the lowest spec level, the middle runs in the mid range of spec. The way its done is simple, all OEM"s put out bids on all filters, Cat, Deere, Case, Terex, Cummins, Detroit or dozens of other OEM's all do this, any new machine or engine that's newly released on the market, puts out an exclusive contract on filters, meaning anyone they contract with can't sell those filters to anyone else.........period for x number of years or the length of the contract usually. This insures nobody else can sell filters to you and you can't get them anywhere else for any price. Now the OEM's go for the cheapest contract, every time, so whoever is going to sell the OEM's the filter the cheapest gets the contract, all that bid and don't get the contract, can't make that filter for the same number of years, its part of the bidding deal they agree to upfront. This insures all OEM's can screw the customer on filters for x number of years guaranteed. Once the contract is up, they can then sell those same filters to anyone, but not in copy write logoed or paint scheme. Cat in the cat logo and paint scheme, deere with its deere logo and green or black paint with yellow writing, etc. Baldwin uses red paint with black letters, fleetguard has white with red and black letters in their distinct letter style and dozens of others as well. Now to say OEM is better, your right to a certain extent, anything new is better, they have a contract, anything old isn't any better than anyone else's in the same quality of filter, remembering the three different quality level's. Now for the real deal buster, Donaldson makes many of fleetguards filters, just painted a different color and with different lettering on them, to know which one's, depends on the contract, they also make certain cat and deere filters, along with every other OEM out there, and also Napa and all the rest, you just need to know what quality of filter you are looking at and pricing. To add insult to injury, OEM's can void the warranty on their machines if you don't buy their filters from them, this is mainly due to the contracts being tied up of not selling the OEM filters to anyone else but the OEM for the first few years of manufacturing. Just about any new engine made has a different filter, than has been used before, many will say this is to the engine model and its needs, where in reality it has to do with charging 100 plus bucks on a filter and being able to get away with it, enough to help offset their engineering costs for the first few years on that machine or engine. Once the contract is done, the filter maker can sell those identical filters to anyone at any price they can negotiate, which is done everyday. The maker can also be within specs and cheapen the identical canister up with cheaper internal components that still meet the criteria of the engine maker in order to reduce costs and generate more profit for the filter manufacturer, hence the different levels of filters out on the market along with huge price difference. To say one brand of filter is any better than another isn't really true if your looking at the same quality of filter in each case, what happens is one OEM will cut their filters open, leave them new on the counter and buy the identical filter of the cheapest quality and cut that one open as well, side by side and tell everyone theirs is the best the cheap competitor is junk when in all reality they are both made by the same filter manufacturer. If an OEM tells you their new filter is the best, ask them get another cheaper quality of filter and then cut them open side by side, they'll do it for an older engine, but not new, they know most anything new has no cheaper filter option out there, they made sure of it, it also tends to shut up the sales people when you demand them to do this on a new make of engine or whatever that's only been out on the market a year or so. If you'd like to buy a filter for you new under warranty machine, you'd better buy it from OEM, they'll void your warranty in many cases and most likely nobody else can get that filter, if you'd like a filter for an older engine, anybody will have it, as for the quality, just cut them open to see for yourself if they are the same quality. As dickjr said there are only about three makers of filters worldwide and I don't think any OEM makes their own, take it for what its worth.
Randy, in my experience that's not strictly true. If a dealer is doing the servicing they will usually (but not always) use OEM filters. I've seen many cases where a dealer was using non-OEM filters for carrying out PM work for customers. If a failure occurs during warranty and a non-OEM part (including filters obviously) can be conclusively proved to have been the root cause of the failure then the manufacturer/dealer will be quite within their rights to deny warranty. This is a point of law that has been tested many times in court over the years. Specifically talking about filters though my personal preference would be to use OEM filters throughout the warranty period for a new machine, just to avoid any possible issues.
unless its a Volvo, been using the same engine oil filters and fuel filters for years now, and across most of its range they are the same. Another very good reason for using oem is that even if it is out of warranty, if the engine fails through contamination of the system, and you are using oem filters you still have a leg to stand on to go after the engine manufacturer. with engines becoming more and more reliant on emissions and infinitely closer tolerances, I can't understand anyone wanting to save a few penny's/cents to risk 0'000.00's on an engine, it doesn't seem logical. unless you can cut open each filter and weld it back together as you get it to prove the internals are of the same spec, you can't say with certainty it is!
Randy88 , I think in my post I said something about a NAPA Gold filter and a CAT filter for my 416C backhoe , I had both but them open and the bottom or inside part where the threads are had the same number on it. Are there not only 3 filter manufacturers in the world anyway?
Its been about a decade ago now, but the last I was told there were about four who made filters, not sure how many there are today, three could all there is. As for the numbers being the same, they should be, Donaldson used to run the same filters for everyone and just paint a different color and print different numbers on the outside, depending on who they had sold them to and how many of each they sold to whom. In order to compare identical filters you don't need to cut them open, get a filter book and each filter is listed and what is inside them for components, that way you can know if your pricing the same identical filter no matter who sells them.
My filters are cheaper at cat than Napa an air filer for a 980g is ten dollars less at cat if I buy all the filters I come out even with or less than napa price Same on the Macks so that makes it a real easy choice even though napa is 45 miles closer and delivers to us twice a day
From experience I can say that some OEM filters I was involved with were manufactured by Donaldson, however they were manufactured to a proprietary OEM internal design and were not simply Donaldson filters painted a different colour and with a different part number on the outside. With our Oriental friends entering the market who knows how many filter manufacturers there really are in the world these days ..?