The crazy thing is, every Ferrari V-12 I’ve ever seen from the ‘60s or ‘70s had two big Fram filters sticking up from the top. I always figured that they must be different from the crap Frams that are sold in FLAPS.

The WIX filter says Gastonia, NC. My father lives there and one day I just drove by their decent sized HQ before I knew they were there. Not where they made the filters but it's a small world. I use WIX on the 911.

On topic, I fill the filter if I can.

On the other hand, I left a VVT solenoid unbolted in the head of a 4cyl Cruze as I was waiting for the replaceent. I absent mindedly started the car and within a couple seconds three quarts were on the ground. Oil pumping is robust.

Fram had issues with the filter media blowing out in the 90's and early aughts. Supposedly its fixed now, at least with their premium filter lines (they have numerous grades). Told to me by a reliable relative that manages a fleet of diesel trucks of all sizes and construction equipment.

I can’t say that I have ever had an oil filter, blow out or go bad in any way, shape or form no matter what manufacturer. And this includes every cheap one I ever bought as a kid all the way up to today. All I have ever done is unscrew the old one and screw the new one on. Now that I can afford to, I just go to the dealer and buy the oil filter from them. I still get my oil from Costco.

For at least the last 30 years, I have only used Mahle filters in the 911's.

In all the other brand cars that I've owned....only used Fram.....never one problem.
And I'll continue using them.

Pretty unlikely for the media in a filter to disintegrate as long as they are changed in time. I once bought an older Mercedes-Benz with a “blown engine” not far from where I am sitting now. The car was absolutely mint under a blanket of dust and I got it for a song.

The lady I bought it from said that she was sitting at a red light when it went, “squeak-squeak-boom” and seized up. She had it towed home and got a new car. When I tore it down, sure enough, the cam and rockers were all dry and welded in place. I pulled off the head and to my surprise, the pistons and cylinders looked fine and the engine now turned fine by hand, (once the cam chain was no longer connected).

I tore down the bottom end to inspect and replace bearings, at this point all I needed was a cam and associated hardware. It was still a mystery what had happened until I opened the oil filter canister, (cartridge type), and found the filter looked like a toilet paper roll, (empty one), with small shreds of paper media left on it. Like a beaver had chewed off all of the filter media like corn on the cob. Sure enough, the small passages up to the top of the engine were plugged up with the wadded-up paper from the filter media.

To make a long story long, a good used cam and bearings plus a valve job later, it ran like new. What happened is that she always took it to a quick change type place for oil changes and they did not have the correct filter for it, so she told them to just change the oil and not the filter. Someone must have told her that this would be fine but who knows? It probably started out as a perfectly good Mann or Mahle filter but it eventually turned to mulch.

Why anyone would compromise on oil filter quality to save a couple of bucks is beyond me. Even if you are in the sticks, you can order several of them online and throw them in the trunk so that the teenager at Jiffy Spooge can change it.

We had a 993 TT customer with an excessive smoking issue and went round and round trying to figure it out. (Oil wasn’t overfilled). Finally I called the PCNA help desk and it just so happened that a German district service manager (can’t recall his name now) was manning the phone. He had a dealer in Florida that had the same problem. Turned out to be the factory oil filter. Changed and problem solved. Weird one with easy solution (just luckily talked to the right guy).

I have. It was back in the mid 70s. I changed the oil on my 1974 914 2.0 and filled it with oil. I backed it out and started forward and heard a funny pop. My oil pressure light came on and I shut off the engine. I got out and there was all my oil on the road.

The foreign parts store I used had sold me a cheaper filter. I was too young to understand that cheap often equals low quality. I struggled and managed to put the 914 back. I got my old filter from the trash, filled it with oil and went back to the parts store with that blown filter in hand. The rubber sealing ring just blew out one side. I was rather upset. They gave me a new good filter, and another four quarts of oil. I went back and drained the oil, and replaced the filter with new, and refilled again. It was almost like owning a 911 using that much oil.

After that I worked at using a Wix filter for oil changes.

Around 2009 GM made major changes to their supply chain . AC Delco was part of that change as they switched to having Champion make AC Delco spin on oil filters . Cartridge filters under the AC Delco name are made by Hengst . In both scenarios they are supposedly made to GM/AC Delco specifications . It's unfortunate that as consumers in many cases you have to peel back the onion to find out what you are really buying . :(

Mighta' been, back in the day!
(You were in luck if you were driving a Humber Super Snipe! - but curiously, Mercedes isn't listed, even though Porsche is!!)


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1736361425.jpg

^^^ My dad bought one of those for our 1964 Plymouth Fury with a 318 . Yeah he was quite frugal :D

Gawd, I remember those. How'd it work out for your dad?

I honestly don't remember much about it other than it seemed to work .

To get back to the original post, it takes me only seconds more to fill the oil filter as get ready to put it back on. I prefer that few seconds of initial start up to have oil pressure, and not rely on just the film of oil in the engine. If it was some arduous, I might skip it. As it is so easy, I fill em up on the El Camino. Of course not on the 911 with a horizontal mounted filter and lots of oil in the oil tank.

For my wife's Macan, no prefill as it is on top, and empty when I take the top off to replace the cartridge.

I would use Charmin because it doesn't leave anything behind

If you fill the filter should you fill it with a lighter oil so it flows one millionth of a second faster?

As I explained earlier, it's completely irrelevant to getting oil to your bearings. It might make your oil pressure gauge register sooner by a second or so because they are usually run off of a sensor next to the filter...the end of the line for oil migration, not the beginning. The bearings are the beginning.

Don't believe me? Look at a schematic of any oiling system. Shawn posted one for a 911 a few posts back.

I wasn't aware that was a quasi religious debate - what is it with oil and car guys ? ;-)
Denis above makes sense. It also makes sense to prefill when possible under the "why not" clause, when not messy (like say most BMW engines), otherwise I'd be more concerned about actually changing the oil often (tranny too), the filter each time, looking inside it if possible, and adding a nice magnetic drain plug. I also send my oil to blackstone each oil change for my older cars (and do only 2000mi on dino oil and 5000 on synthetics). That's probably nuts too but my dino oil cars are old, I have several 200K mi+ engines that are not disproving my madness.

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never. if it was important, the engineers would never build an engine with an upside down, or sideways filter.

my new tacoma has a canister, so that isn't happening

That has been my reasoning for not worrying about filling the filter. If it's a vertical or horizontal filter I pour some oil in it while I'm lubing the gasket, but I don't obsess over it.

Just did the BMW. FYI, these lights are amazing when working in the engine bay and under the car. Engine bay just loop zip ties to the hood latch loops our sheetmetal holes. They are very bright but not blinding and flood an area well. Just finished a complete cooling system refresh on the car and they were indispensable to seeing everything underneath the car clearly.

10-Pack 8ft LED Shop Light Fixture - 90W T8 Integrated LED Tube Light - 6500K 12000LM V-Shape Linkable - High Output - Clear Cover - Plug and Play - 270 Degree Lighting for Garage, Shop, Barn

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1736621975.jpg

I want to agree with the logic but bean counters and poor engineering and built in obsolescence all conspire to build whatever is cheapest and easiest that will last some pre-defined time that "puts the blame on the consumer" for failure rather than the mfg.

We stopped listening to our ancestors who warned us of great floods and fires and famine the same way we stopped listening to our mechanics and plumbers and electricians

we take the engineers word as gold while we dismiss the people that actually DO THE WORK

I've changed thousands of oil filters, never filled a single one them.

My Harley's is horizontal so not gonna happen.

I've had a pressure relief valve stick closed on my old BMW a number of times.
I have no problem leaving them empty.
When you see how fast a full displacement pump can pump out 3 or more quarts of oil you quickly realize the bearings aren't going to see much more than one revolution of the crank before they're swimming in oil.

Seeing how 1/2 my cars have an oil filter pointing up, and 1/2 my cars have a filter pointing down, I'm taking the Dali Lama approach to this.....

(edit...oh... and there's a certain 911 with a filter pointing sideways) :)

So, it’s my understanding that the oil in large marine application engines are not changed, but filtered and analyzed for specific additive content…. The oil filters used are no where near the low tier that is used in automotive applications…

365 GTB V12 Daytona..........

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1736650454.jpg

I couldn’t get your link to work, but would be interested in it. I was working on the 911 this afternoon/evening, changing fluids and wondered about a decent work light. I have a LED that attaches to DeWalt batteries, several headlight lights, rechargeable magnetic base LED lights, etc. It seems having a variety of lights is the way to go, because I can’t find a one light does it all.

Edit: I changed the oil but did not fill the oil filter in the 911.