OEM Honda vs. SuperTech Air Filters

Holy cow, that's 11,000 miles? I would have guessed 60,000.

With air quality that poor, I would go back to Honda OEM next time and stick with it. Why? Because the Honda OEM filter media is oiled and the ST is not. The light oil coating creates a tacky surface to help trap fine contaminants and is probably a good idea to have in your area by the looks of it.
The ST won't be as dirty; the OE Honda filter is oiled.
 
Are you saying because the ST will pass more dirt that the Honda oil is catching? If that's what you mean, even more reason to stick with the Honda filter.
It is possible that ST's filter media is equally efficient without the usage of oil, but without having efficiency numbers for both filters, it is impossible to say.
 
Oiling the media improves its efficiency. But perhaps other medias can achieve the same level of efficiency without the assistance of oil.
I mean stemming from "The ST won't be as dirty; the OE Honda filter is oiled" in response to my earlier comment. What's your point.
 
My point is: you might be inclined to run the ST filter longer since it will be less soiled after the same amount of runtime.
An used oiled filter might subjectively look worse than an equally efficient non-oiled one that has captured the same amount of "dirt". Was that your point, in part?
 
Took these on Saturday . Plan to change out next month . Thinking of the WIX , PUROLATOR or the O.E.M. ( pictured ) . This area gets plenty of salt and dirt on roads . Wait to later April or MAY when most of this is washed off roads thanks to rain .

IMG_0511.JPG
IMG_0509.JPG
 
Last edited:
An used oiled filter might subjectively look worse than an equally efficient non-oiled one that has captured the same amount of "dirt". Was that your point, in part?

I think the point is that an oiled filter captures a lot of small particles before they ever hit the filter media. Because the oil is on the surface of the filter this is what you see. It “saves” the filter media from dealing with this so looks worse.

Even so, the OP’s filter does look bad given the mileage. My Honda filters look lots better after 30k.
 
Holy cow, that's 11,000 miles? I would have guessed 60,000.

With air quality that poor, I would go back to Honda OEM next time and stick with it. Why? Because the Honda OEM filter media is oiled and the ST is not. The light oil coating creates a tacky surface to help trap fine contaminants and is probably a good idea to have in your area by the looks of it.
May be true but my factory Nissan Rogue filter was oiled to the extent that it fouled its own MAF. Was chasing this problem for months. I though I had a PCV blowback issue - but no.

I put the removed O.E. JAPAN Nissan filter in the replacement STP box and that box was completely saturated with oil in a week! Maybe the oiling machine conveyor at the filter factory got stuck for a minute ?!

Car flowed a LOT more air and had MUCHO more WOT passing power with a non oiled filter.
 
ST filters seem like the same as Service Champ/Champ. Made in USA, shocked it’s not from China or Korea. Does it have the same two-layer media as the OE Honda Filtech?
I put one of these filters in a 2000 Camry because it was the only Made in USA filter that I could find for the car.
 
The dirty filter to the left is a Honda OEM for our 2018 Honda CRV 1.5L turbo. Installed last summer at 85,000 miles. Replaced it today with 95,700 miles. Rounding up the filter has 11,000 miles and it did its job well. We live in Southern California, find it hard to believe it’s this dirty. We did take a 2,000 mile trip out of state in this car and it gets driven on the highway 50 miles per day commuting to work. The OEM unit is $30 at my local dealers.

Wanted to try an economy air filter, so I purchased the SuperTech 1900 air filter for $10 at Walmart. It’s evident the number is pleats is less (didn’t count) with the ST. I’ll post a photo in a year of the SuperTech used but I will say the ST made a good seal in the air-box and the plastic frame of the filter appears solid.

My filters looked like that when I lived there.
So cal freeways and streets are a haze of pollution and rubber dust.

The supertech filter is clearly inferior to the Honda OEM from a surface area perspective - the pleat count looks about double.
 
Back
Top