Originally Posted By: trx250x92
I just received a (what is supposed to be) a geniune Honda A01 oil filter for my civic that I bought from eBay. The filter itself has "Made in China" on the canister, but the shrink wrap says made in USA. The seller was in the U.S., but it came from Puerto Rico that the listing didn't specify. I'm not too familiar with the A01, but can I get some input? Is it a genuine Honda part?
This looks like a filter meant for use in Asia. Probably not fake. US-market filters say "Assembled in USA" on them, or at least they did until very recently.
I'm not too sure about the Filtech diamond logo on the bottom: The US examples I've seen don't have little circles, but instead have what resemble punch-marks, and the diamond only has a single line.
US-market Filtechs also have a crimp flange that stands totally proud of the body of the filter. This one looks slightly recessed, but that may be just image distortion caused by the the shrink-wrap. The shrink looks wrong. You don't usually see it where the seam is split like that; that's a poor-quality shrink job; and shrink tunnels are everywhere.
As for the red Honda sticker, it's impossible to tell if it actually says "Made in USA" on it. Are you sure it doesn't say "Assembled in USA"? Either way, there's some kind of mismatch, which is troubling unless the filter was meant for some part of Asia where point-of-origin labeling isn't important and the factory simply used whatever stickers they had lying around. Is the sticker actually orange, or is it definitely red with no orange tint? How crisp is the printing? It should be sharp as a knife, with every detail in the text clearly visible. Check the text at the bottom of the red sticker, specifically the Spanish word "removida" and the French word above it, "enleve". The right-hand edges of the final "e" in "enleve" and the "D" in "removida" ought to be in perfect vertical alignment.
