Re: Marine vs Automotive oil filters.....
Man...my knees are getting sore from climbing on and off my soapbox! Back on for those who care...<br /><br />As a former auto mechanic and hobby racer, I guess here's my question (which has NEVER been answered any ANY forum I've visited) on all of this filter dissassembly/construction diff comparison...Does it really matter? <br /><br />These low-budget "studies" all seem to be subjective in the fact that they're making the assumption that pore size, surface area of filter media, filter material etc. actually make a difference in final engine wear, but none have actually proven this fact. So a few small chunks of iron get by the filter and are left in suspension by the oil...does that chunk actually do any damage before it settles somewhere? Nobody in any of my gearhead circles I know of has EVER seen an engine with a lubrication failure that could be attributed to a particular brand of oil filter.<br /><br />Here's the study I'd like to see done...10 identical brand new marine (or auto) engines, weighed to the nearest 100th of a gram, compression tested, bores measured, and bearing clearance measured immediately after break-in. Pick a benchmark time/distance run, maybe 5,000 hours (or 200,000 miles) while following the recommended oil/filter change schedule, along with plenty of cold starts, hot/cold cycles, high loads, long idle times, WOT runs, etc, etc. Naturally each engine would have to go through the exact same sequence and use the exact same oil.<br /><br />Now disassemble the motors, take all the same internal measurements, and weigh the engines to the 100th of a gram again to determine exactly how much metal was lost due to wear. NOW we have an actual answer instead of yet another guess from someone who thinks cardboard is a bad material to put in an oil filter (why is cardboard a problem? Because it looks cheap? Maybe it has its merits...show me the answer in terms of engine wear and then we can answer the question.) <br /><br />An expensive one-time test? Yes. But if a particular oil filter manufacturer were to do such a thing AND successfully prove their superiority, can you imagine the advertising gains they could glean from the expense? Yet I've never seen such a study done...Why? I don't think (totally my subjective opinion) that any filter manufacturer believes it would conclusively prove it'd make a difference in their favor.<br /><br />I recall Consumer Reports doing such a test maybe 10+ years ago when comparing engine oils...they picked a NY taxi-cab company and did almost EXACTLY what I mention with around 10 taxi cab engines each with a different brand of oil, including some synthetics. I don't remember all the specifics, but after maybe 100K to 150K miles of taxi-cab running they disassembled each engine and re-weighed certain key wear parts and found NO statistically significant difference between ANY different oil brands or types and came to the conclusion that even the cheapest department store brand oil performed as well as an expensive synthetic in a real-world abused vehicle test.<br /><br />I honestly think these differences in oil filters mean absolutely nothing to real-world wear, but don't have the finances or desire to prove it, so I'm sure the battle will go on....<br /><br />Off soapbox. Peace!
