Filter Guy-
You know Gary has given a very interesting analogy to this discussion concerning the issue of filters that show damage either before or in particular, after use. It’s about as accurate as an analogy could be; I thought it was pretty good. It was about the best opportunity that you have had to just let it die.
You just had to start this back up though. Sounds to me like you are being suspiciously defensive towards Lubeowner, to the point that it sounds more like being threatened by him. He hasn’t even been responding to your taunts, but it seems you have put yourself in quite a hole all by yourself. Every time you do this you are bringing MORE validity to these pictures, and doing MORE damage to Champ’s credibility. I don’t understand at all why the ultra loyalty when you say you don’t work there any more. You are not offering anything constructive, only constant deflections to the subject at hand.
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FG- “Then when Oregonian soccer mom comes in to change her oil. She's gone 5,000 miles between oil changes. He cuts her filter open and he shows her some "damage".
Has he not missed the opportunity to explain the need to change oil at the recommended interval and if she doesn't this is what could happen to the filter?”
So you think a lube shop owner is going to tell someone to ignore the mfgr. recommended OCI and use a shorter interval just because he is using a filter that can’t live out the mfgr’s recommended interval? And you say that all filters meet OEM specs? Many mfgrs recommend OCI’s longer than 3k miles, some still recommend changing the filter only every other OCI. It seems apparent that these filters aren’t meeting THIS spec…..
FG- He has or had the potential to get 8 more changes out of his customer by reinforcing the maintenance interval and showing his customer that their driving style along with extended drain intervals was probably the reason for the filter looking like it did.
So you think his main goal is to bilk the customer out of MORE money?, and again, as usual, you are blaming the vehicle owner for no substantiated reason.
FG- As always, it's a consumers choice.
Yes it is, and the more educated the consumer the better choice they can make, in this case Lubeowner actually has done his homework, found that he was having repeated failures with predominantly the Warner/Champ brand, and he decided to change brands. Good for him, and good for his customers.
FG- Which is why the data is important to determine what conditions the filter "failed".
Many of us who have actually done some troubleshooting in our careers have learned a few basic things. Details surrounding a failure can help, and they can hinder as well. Data that could be available in a filter failure event could be sketchy at best, incomplete and possibly full of excess meaningless non-contributory information, like a big word problem in math where the teacher can insert some extra information that can take the student off the correct track for problem solving. The only thing for certain is the filter itself with the damage it shows in this particular media damage example.
FG- One can not change their maintenance habits if they don't recognize what causes the problem.
Easy, when they recognize that predominantly one brand is showing problems, they can change brands. Problem solved
FG- Nor can a filter company change the construction of an element if they don't know certain criteria as to what may have caused the problem.
Sounds to me like that filter company should be doing some more effective testing themselves, seems like any testing they have been doing has not been paying off so well. We don’t see many Wix/Purolator problems these days
[ May 24, 2005, 12:33 AM: Message edited by: Gary Allan ]
