How do you rank'em???

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Ranger1

Joined
Feb 23, 2009
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Location
Lehigh Valley, PA
Locally, I can buy the following air filters for my '08 Liberty:

$11 Fram
$16.29 Purolator
$21-$24 Champ, NAPA, Wix
$51 K&N

I know the sales pitch / differences for the K&N, but my thoughts on the others is that they are pretty close to the same thing.

Ignoring K&N and prices for the moment, how would you rank the rest in terms of performance and quality?

I have seen excellent tear-downs and reviews for oil filters, how about air filters???

I don't mind buying the K&N as I plan to keep the Jeep forever...well 'till I bury it anyway. But, is there a mid-grade that is actually worth the money???

If you would decide not to go for a K&N, and given the prices shown...would you buy the Fram??? If not, which one and why???

One last question...I know Wix makes oil filters for NAPA and Carquest, but do they also do their air filters? If not, who makes them then???

My thanks for any and all replies!!!
 
I think I would go with the Champ, wix, or NAPA

Just put a Fram in my Cavalier, 52 pleats to 92 for the original. I replaced a Fram in my truck a couple of years ago with a Purolator. The Purolator had many fewer and poorlyspaced pleats.
 
I don't think STP filters ever fit good, while FRAM always fit perfectly. This has happened on many cars, so I go with FRAM air filters for now. I might start going to NAPA and getting their filters since they are talked about so highly.
 
I looked for aftermarket air filters for my application, a 2009 Subaru Forester. What I found was there was only a few and they were all made overseas and many looked identical to each other. What I found was that unless it is a high end air filter, like the PureOne or Napa Gold, the filters appear to be made by contract manufactors in many different countries and these manufactures can supply the same filter to STP, FRAM, Purolator, etc. It is hard for me to say one is better than the other, I find it really depends on the specific application for the filter and who, FRAM, Purorlator, etc contracted with to buy and repackage. You can find air filters made in USA, China, Poland, Israel, South Korea all from the brand ie Fram, STP. For my application I found the Subaru OEM Denso filter to be the better than any of the aftermarket filters. It certainly had a better gasket.
 
I went to an A&A Autoparts in Allentown to get a Fram for about $11. They were the cheapest for what I could find sitting on the shelf. When they rang it up, it actually was about $8 and change. With a $4 Fram Rebate that was available, I ended up paying less than $5 total!!!

Walmart and some others did not have anything on the shelf that would fit my '08 Liberty. Even places carrying K&N's did not have my size on the shelf.

It makes me wonder how popular my size is, since it was a little harder to find on a shelf....

Anyway, since I knew of the Fram by then...I just got it.
 
Last edited:
Ranger1,

Welcome to the lunacy of BITOG. For as much as everyone here obsesses over oil and oil filters, we rarely have good debates on air filters. That's a shame because air filters are probably more important than oil filters, IMO.

Unless the previous posters have experience with your '08 Liberty, I found that air filter "quality" varies across a mfg. line and you cannot generalize about one brand over another (hofcat is correct). You have to inspect the various offerings, and even then, you can only make a judgment based on physical qualities (build quality, fit, and appearance). It's hard to tell what the media quality is.

I use Wix/NAPA gold for a Caravan and Escort and they are built superb. But recently they changed the construction/source? on my daughter's Sebring and it fits lousy. I chose a Fram for it this time.

Unless we get some data, all we can do is compare and inspect filters and choose the one the "seems" best while avoiding ones that "seem" inferior.

Most people here think Fram makes a decent AIR filter.
 
Originally Posted By: doitmyself
Ranger1,

Welcome to the lunacy of BITOG. For as much as everyone here obsesses over oil and oil filters, we rarely have good debates on air filters. That's a shame because air filters are probably more important than oil filters, IMO.

Unless the previous posters have experience with your '08 Liberty, I found that air filter "quality" varies across a mfg. line and you cannot generalize about one brand over another (hofcat is correct). You have to inspect the various offerings, and even then, you can only make a judgment based on physical qualities (build quality, fit, and appearance). It's hard to tell what the media quality is.



Unless we get some data, all we can do is compare and inspect filters and choose the one the "seems" best while avoiding ones that "seem" inferior.



The quality of the filter media is a big question mark since I can only look at it and do not have any test data on it. I did notice that many of the aftermarket filters for my application had hard plastic filter frames that were not flat. They were slightly bent up at a corner. Another problem I saw was with the gaskets. Some appeared to have felt gaskets that were thinner than OEM or the glue used to stick them to the frame was applied to thick in some areas over saturating the gasket and making it hard and thinner in spots. I just did not feel these would seal as well for my application. The OEM Denso visually looked superior or atleast had better quality control.
 
Buy the fram or the puro and dont sweat it. I doubt a 24 dollar filter will work better than an 11 dollar fram. Dont fall for the hype. If we really wanted to get serious about air filtration then we would all run a donaldson 3 stage.
 
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