Owner reviews for oil filter

I had this issue in an old 2.0l cabrio with 165k miles on it. I eventually had to ensure I used a mann filter and 10w40 oil at all times. Never had a problem again. The better filter flows better and the heavier oil creates more pressure at the higher temps.

For those that have leaking around the filter housing, did you use the vaico filter or the OEM? Have seen the Vaico filter/oring combo leaking on a few cars. Swapped out for the OEM filter/oring combo on those vehicles and have had no more issues.

After tearing apart the motor and doing a swap, I also changed the fluid and filter on the car. The factory metal filter was still intact, which leads me to believe that this maintenance was never done by the previous 2 owners.

My lovely girl friend has a 2 door BMW 1997 325i. It's a very pretty car with 176k miles on it. We drove it all over and one day it hit me, when was the last time the oil was changed? She thought her parents maintained it, but after some digging the oil hadn't been changed in 1 1/2 years and possibly 30k miles. I pulled the filter out and it was worse than this, and just fyi BMW filters like these do it kinda often from what I have read.

Then engine had 2.5 out of the 7 quarts it is supposed to have. (poured the oil in a 4 quart jug to see). I have absolutely no idea how it lasted so long. It was a ticking time bomb. So after 6 quarts of oil and the seventh being sludge cleaner, the engine has no more ticks and runs very well.

This is the reason I love Mercedes-Benz. The Mann filters use a fleece media rather than paper, and I have customers that routinely abuse their oil change intervals (20k miles) and they still held up. Paper filters don't hold up or filter very well much past 5 thousand miles.

If you are going to go with extended oil changes 10-20k miles you must use a high quality filter and if not a Group 3 Polyalphaolefin (PAO) oil, an actual full synthetic oil would be best. Mobil 1 and Castrol Syntec are not true synthetic they are (PAO) Group 3. Red-Line, Amsoil, and Royal Purple are the common true synthetics. If you paid less than $15-$20 a quart for oil it's not a true synthetic.

Your filter has to be high quality. Even then I would advise you change the filter and top off your oil at 8k-10k miles.

Oil filters that are able to go for extended runs are Wix, Napa Gold, and Bosch. Those are the 3 brands I trust for long term use. My truck with over 170k miles drives like it did over 13 years ago when I got it new.

I would rather run a Mann oil filter than an oem/VW filter. Same thing for the air filter.

My mecanician is now using TOTAL ( also known as ELF ) Quartz 5w30 and even gave me a discount price for the oil change. I know about the Sludge issue and is always doing is oil change at 5k with the big oil filter 51333

I use K&N oil filters sometimes, a little cheaper than oem but they are quality.

DON'T put an FRAM filter! They are crap! Complete! When you remove an FRAM oil filter the filtering element (paper) comes off all mashed up as cellulose goo, then you know FRAM is a piece of crap!