Motorcraft FL820s fail

[jongies3]

Originally Posted by cronk
What bothers me the most is, this filter has been on 10 months. I wonder how long ago it tore? If it tore a month after install, I have been driving the truck for 9 months with substandard filtering.
This is a new to me engine , and I did see some flakes of what looked like carbon in some of the other pleats. Wonder how many flakes went through this filter and recirculated through the engine.
Ford is so worried about dirt going through a dome end bypass valve, but use a manufacturer with a history of poor media quality that tears and leaves you with a full time bypass valve for dirt to go through.

Depends how much dust and other dirty conditions the vehicle was subjected to. And your air filter is more important than the oil filter, so if you had a good air filter the entire time you shouldn't have to worry much!

 

[hatt]

Great filters. Use with confidence!!!!

 

[cronk]

Originally Posted by jongies3
Originally Posted by cronk
What bothers me the most is, this filter has been on 10 months. I wonder how long ago it tore? If it tore a month after install, I have been driving the truck for 9 months with substandard filtering.
This is a new to me engine , and I did see some flakes of what looked like carbon in some of the other pleats. Wonder how many flakes went through this filter and recirculated through the engine.
Ford is so worried about dirt going through a dome end bypass valve, but use a manufacturer with a history of poor media quality that tears and leaves you with a full time bypass valve for dirt to go through.

Depends how much dust and other dirty conditions the vehicle was subjected to. And your air filter is more important than the oil filter, so if you had a good air filter the entire time you shouldn't have to worry much!

Oh bull, this is an engine with over 170k miles that I was running synthetic oil to clean up any accumulated sludge.
There were obvious black flakes that were caught in the pleats that were not damaged. Looked almost like coffee grounds. Probably small flakes of carbon being cleaned from the oil rings.
How many were allowed to be pumped through this hole and into the cam phaser solenoids, cam bearing journals, main bearing journals ect.
I'm sick of people making excuses like this for these filters. They are substandard garbage filters, plain and simple.
Maybe if enough of us complain to Ford , they will award the filter contract to a company that gives a crap and wants to build a decent filter.

 

[ZeeOSix]

Originally Posted by cronk
Maybe if enough of us complain to Ford , they will award the filter contract to a company that gives a crap and wants to build a decent filter.


I believe a few members here did contact and inform Motorcraft/Ford a fewcyears ago about tearing Motorcraft filters, but nobody heard any reply back. Who knows if Motorcraft listened.

And yes, carbon particles were coming from within the engine, which the air filter has no influence on preventing.

 

[SirTanon]

This has come up before. The FL820(s) filters seem to be the black sheep of the Motorcraft lineup, in terms of tearing, etc.. The general consensus seems to be that the filters don't contain enough media for the increased size/diameter, thus leaving multiple pleats.. 'stretched' across more area, which seems to be what makes them prone to tearing.

 

[SubieRubyRoo]

I wonder if the media had "rolled" ends of the pleats instead of a hard " V " shape if they would be less likely to tearing?

820S seems to have the worst results. I've only used the FL-1S and the FL-400S but never cut them open. I sent every Motorcraft filter size my local Walmart had a couple months ago to 53' Stude and they were cut open in this forum. Some looked much better than others, and those were all new.

 

[CR94]

Originally Posted by SubieRubyRoo
I wonder if the media had "rolled" ends of the pleats instead of a hard " V " shape if they would be less likely to tearing? ...
Probably not, because that would take more space, so they'd have to reduce the number of pleats, which would increase pressure drop, which would increase stress on the media.

What would help more, short of actually upgrading the dubious media material, would be maintaining more uniform spacing.

 

[blupupher]

Originally Posted by CR94
...

What would help more, short of actually upgrading the dubious media material, would be maintaining more uniform spacing.

Yup, and the tears are always in the same place, just either side of the media seam, and the media spacing is always wider there.

 

[DGXR]

I recall the FL820 is on the list of oil filters with tearing media, along with some Purolators, at least that was in the past. I think Purolator makes some of the Motorcraft filters? They don't always tear, but more often than many other makes/models of oil filter.

 

[Colt45ws]

Originally Posted by blupupher
Originally Posted by CR94
...

What would help more, short of actually upgrading the dubious media material, would be maintaining more uniform spacing.

Yup, and the tears are always in the same place, just either side of the media seam, and the media spacing is always wider there.

Yes, and the other thing youll notice that this does, is it pulls the adhesive away from the end cap. You can see the bow in what would be the bottom, which no surprise fell off without the spring. In mine, this actually put a crack in the adhesive and another possible leak path.

 

[CR94]

Has anyone noticed this rarely happens to filters with "fiber" end caps, and never (as best I can recall) happens to end-cap-free filters?

 

[1978elcamino]

Is the Supertech equivalent made by the company that makes ac delco filters? would that be a better option than the motorcraft speaking in terms of quality?

 

[Dallas69]

Purolator had a bunch of torn media filters but I don't recall any dead engines because of it.
Engines can take a lot of abuse and don't seem to care about torn media.
Not ideal but probably no damage done.

 

[ZeeOSix]

Originally Posted by Dallas69
Purolator had a bunch of torn media filters but I don't recall any dead engines because of it.
Engines can take a lot of abuse and don't seem to care about torn media.
Not ideal but probably no damage done.


A "probably" I don't care to test out.

 

[blupupher]

Originally Posted by Dallas69
Purolator had a bunch of torn media filters but I don't recall any dead engines because of it.
Engines can take a lot of abuse and don't seem to care about torn media.
Not ideal but probably no damage done.

But why have a filter that does not filter?
It is not as much about the damage that may or may not happen, it is the fact that it has been an ongoing problem of failure in a product, and it has been ignored by the manufacturer.

 

[Colt45ws]

Originally Posted by blupupher
Originally Posted by Dallas69
Purolator had a bunch of torn media filters but I don't recall any dead engines because of it.
Engines can take a lot of abuse and don't seem to care about torn media.
Not ideal but probably no damage done.

But why have a filter that does not filter?
It is not as much about the damage that may or may not happen, it is the fact that it has been an ongoing problem of failure in a product, and it has been ignored by the manufacturer.

Right.
I dont think anybody's engine is going to lockup because of one or even a few bad oil filters. The issue is the OP, among others including myself, paid for an oil filter and it was defective. Not only that, but the manuf. does not even acknowledge this is an issue or seem interested in trying to remedy it. So as far as Im concerned, Im not buying anything from them.

 

[Linctex]

Originally Posted by Dallas69
Purolator had a bunch of torn media filters but I don't recall any dead engines because of it.
Engines can take a lot of abuse and don't seem to care about torn media.
Not ideal but probably no damage done.


Truth.

Look at small air cooled engines that have lasted for decades....

Look at VW type 1 engines with a "screen door screen" for an "oil filter"

Look at all the engine built in the 30's, 40's and 50's with no oil filter.

Even the "original Bob" (that started this forum) drove around with a bare empty oil filter can - and the UOA afterward shows NO ILL EFFECTS!!

Explain away these?

Even a torn oil filter STILL filters MOST of the oil

 

[ZeeOSix]

"Ill Effects" ... covers a huge array of what constitutes that. I guess if people want to run torn oil filters on their vehicles then by all means go for it.

Engines can run a long time with lots of wear and damage. Just because it still drives around and seems to "run good" doesn't mean bad things might be going on inside that nobody can detect from behind the steering wheel.

And actually, in a modern engine torn media going down stream could have an impact on systems like these. The video even mentions torn media as being a source. Kind of ironic that Ford/Motorcraft is talking about torn media and showing an FL-820S in the video when we've seen members posting up C&Ps of torn FL-820S filters.

 

[advocate]

Here is an example where a torn motorcraft caused an engine failure. Luckily it was covered under warranty. But it goes to show that this is an issue that I wish Ford would take more seriously. This tearing issue has gone on for far too long!


https://www.f150forum.com/f70/5-0l-oil-filter-failure-271294/

 

[4wd]

Yep … BiL was using them on his F150 w/ 3.5L EB … told him the history and gave him a few XG10575's since I now have two L83's and want the higher PRV pressure …