What if?
That’s a great question. It can stimulate deep thinking, whether you’re planning national defense, or just making plans for the weekend hunting trip.
It’s also a very good question to ask when you’re making decisions about auto repair and maintenance, and a question that should be asked when you’re doing something as simple as choosing an oil filter.
According to the folks at Purolator, who invented the automotive oil filter way back in 1923, the consequences of using a sub-standard oil filter are many and varied and, as suggested by our headline, failure can be catastrophic.
“Oil filters appear simple because all of their secrets are hidden inside a plain-looking case,” said Ramon Nuñez, spokesman for Purolator Filters, a leading supplier of automotive filters to the aftermarket in North America. “It’s easy to think of oil filters as nothing more than a piece of pleated paper glued inside a metal cylinder, with a rubber sealing ring thrown in for good measure. But oil filters are far more complex than that, and oil filter malfunction or failure can cause, at the least, premature engine wear and oil consumption and, at worst, catastrophic engine failure.”
Nuñez pointed out a few of the ways oil filters can malfunction, along with the likely results of such failures. “A common problem, especially with poorly-designed oil filters, is clogging of the media,” explained Purolator’s Nuñez. “This can result from not changing the oil and filter regularly, but a quality oil filter should have enough capacity to capture and safely hold a substantial amount of contaminants. The consequence of a clogged oil filter is typically the routing of unfiltered oil to critical engine components or, in extreme cases, total oil starvation. In either case, “the result is damage to engine bearings and other precision engine parts, greatly shortening engine life,” he said.
Quality oil filters incorporate a bypass valve. “The role of this valve,” said Nuñez, “is to direct unfiltered oil to engine parts, rather than no oil at all if the filter becomes clogged or if, in particularly cold weather, the oil is too thick to pass through the filtering media until it warms up and thins out. The ‘what if’ here is, ‘what if’ the bypass valve is poorly designed and fails to operate properly? The likely consequence is, as described earlier, oil starvation and serious engine damage.”
According to Nuñez, “quality oil filters also incorporate an anti-drainback valve where needed. This valve keeps oil from running back down into the oil pan after shut-down so the filter and oil passages are already filled with oil the next time the engine is started. So ‘what if’ the anti-drainback valve fails or, worse yet, is not even incorporated into the construction of a low-end filter? Simple. Oil drains back into the sump, leaving the filter itself and all of the oil passages empty. Consequently, critical internal engine parts will be starved for oil when the engine is started again, until the filter and oil galleries are re-filled with oil, again leading to excess friction and engine damage.”
Even the oil filter housing itself can fail under certain circumstances, said Nuñez. “Cold start-up with thick oil can produce extraordinary spikes in oil pressure in the filter,” he said, “and can actually cause the housing to burst – in extreme cases. In such instances, all of the engine oil can be pumped out in as little as a minute. And by the time the driver notices, or perhaps doesn’t even notice, a warning light on the dash, the damage is already done and the engine quite possibly seized and destroyed.”
So how does one choose a quality oil filter and avoid all of these “what ifs?”
Choose a filter from a reputable manufacturer and do a little homework on the factors that matter most,” advised Purolator’s Nuñez. According to him, the three most important factors to consider are efficiency, capacity, and reliability.
“Efficiency is the measure of a filter’s ability to remove small particles from the oil,” he said. “For instance, our Purolator Classic oil filters have an efficiency of 97.5%, which means they will remove 97.5 percent of all particles as small as 20 microns. A micron is a millionth of a meter, or about one-thousandths of an inch. And our top-of-the-line PureONE oil filters are 99.9 percent efficient.” The greater the efficiency, the more particles the filter will capture.
“Capacity,” said Nuñez, “tells you how many contaminants a filter can hold before becoming clogged. Our PureONE oil filters have a capacity of 13 grams, which means they can capture and hold the equivalent of 31 standard-size paper clips before becoming clogged. That’s an extraordinary amount of contaminants, so motorists using a PureONE oil filter normally don’t have to worry about ‘what if’ the filter becomes clogged.”
“And finally,” said Nuñez, “Reliability comes with respected brands. Since most motorists and even professional technicians don’t normally cut open filters to examine their materials and construction, you’ve got to rely on manufacturers who stake their decades of reputation on the design, construction, and performance of components, materials, and engineering that, for the most part, go unseen once they’re assembled. So motorists, do-it-yourselfers (DIYers), and professional technicians should trust engines to filters made by those who have pioneered innovations like the very first automotive oil filter, the first full-flow oil filter, and the spin-on oil filter.”
After all, you don’t want to risk your engine on a series of “what if’s.”
Even more detailed information as well as a personal answer to any filter-related question can be accessed via the Purolator Web site at www.purolatorautofilters.net. The Purolator Response Office (PROs) will answer any filter-related question and provide a personal reply via e-mail within 48 hours. The Purolator PROs can answer virtually any question about filtration, from application data to dimensional specifications to media design and configuration to installation procedures. This free service represents the broad support programs Purolator offers to repair shops. Purolator PROs can be contacted through the Purolator Web site at www.purolatorautofilters.net.
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