I drove a 2006 GMC canyon for 150,000 miles with a K&N air filter which said it added an extra 8 HP, I didn't notice. Never one problem with it or the engine. After I sold it I learned that it made that extra HP by not filtering the air as good as stock. I have a newer Canyon and won't use one because of that.
K&N Premium Filter is nothing more than a Supertech
- Thread starter FMC
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I was down in Daytona in 2009-2010 timeframe and was at a traffic light on my Sportster. Guy in lane next to me had a beautiful Softail. K&N filter....leaking at the nut. Physically saw the drip. I waved at him and pointed it out. We pulled into the gas station. Yup, leaking at the nut. He was pretty upset. Luckily, it seemed to be a slow drip. He said he was going to go to the J&P cycle shop just down the road and get a new filter. I offered my assistance but he was good. He said never again would he buy a K&N. I agree with him.
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- Nov 6, 2022
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You guys are making me feel bad about all the business I've given K&N! To be honest their air filters are nice and last a lifetime. Their paper oil filters are good quality in my experience, too. All anecdotal, of course. I've used them a couple times on my 2GR engine with no issue.
I only ever installed one canister-style K&N on my old man's Chevy but he totaled it before ever putting it through the paces.
I believe that motorcycle race tracks don't allow K&N oil filters with the nut on them due to the risk of them leaking oil and causing a crash.
The can is way thicker.
But again does anyone that any ordinary filter can NOT remove "enough" of the most damaging particles in uncountable cycles in any given oil change cycle? I don't .
Yep. That's where I am at.honestly, if you dont keep em very long there is almost no point in doing much maintenance on them at all..
Yeah 2 more hp 0.01% of the time and 3x to 20x more dirt all of the time.Years ago wasn’t K&N debunked (air filters) by some guy with expensive bench testing equipment? I was one of those who sought 2HP extra and thought it was a swindle
There's been iso5011 testing done on them. Their efficiency is usually a little worse than the cheapest no name paper air filter you can find at any given moment.
If you want a thick can there's always Donaldson.
But again we don't know the production rate of the range of micron size particles nor the capture rate. Its a 20K milter so there is no reason that I KNOW of to speculate the filter will be come less efficient at the 8K miles i intend to run this filter in my vehicles-no?
And in the worst case it will have no bearing on the health of the vehicles I have. My vehicles are kept 35Ish K miles and the wife's subaru (she loves it) will need to be pried out of her cold dead hands.
Every oil filter gets less efficiency as it loads up. Filters with lower ISO 4548-12 efficiency most likely become less efficient quicker with loading vs a filter with a very high ISO efficiency - that's one reason they are lower efficiency, due to debris sloughing with increased loading and dP. If you're running the filter to 8K miles, and your engine is pretty clean running, then not much to worry about. As mentioned, the longer the OCI, the more important a high efficiency filter becomes.
You wouldn't know without a controlled study costing millions of dollars. It would be a long range effect over the life of the vehicle. One way to negate spending millions to find out is to simply use high efficiency filters, which don't cost that much more.
My 2008 subaru lasted 270K miles and still going strong when last heard from. Probably has 300K miles on it. It did use oil and when I switched to 40 wt usage was about a quart every 5K miles.. Only about a quarter of its life did it use high efficiency filters. It averaged 7+K miles oil changes when I had it. But look at some of the OCI's below. I don't think it takes millions for a study. I can't imagine any vehicle failing bc of an oil related issue in its first 200K with 8K mileage OCI with 30 micron filters. I think I said earlier that I believe there is little to be gained in terms of engine life vis-a-viz 20 micron filters. I certainly could be wrong. But it appears with subaru engines anyways I will get 100K out of them.
As said many times, it's not about "engine failures" ... it's about keeping the wear over the life of the engine lower than not to keep the engine in top mechanical health. How would you know if there was a difference or not in wear over the lifetime of the engine without doing a million dollar controlled study. Those studies have been done (in the lab and in the field), and the conclusion is always that higher efficiency oil filters keeps oil cleaner, which results in less overall wear. Nothing will change the physics of that. Of course, as always, the longer the OCI the more important the filter's efficiency becomes. If you did 1000 mile OCIs, you wouldn't need a very efficient oil filter.
