Oil Filter Longevity (Time)

[paseodriver]

I know you should change your oil at a set time interval no matter how many miles but what about the filter?? If I change my oil every six months do I necessary need to change my filter if I only drove 1000 miles? I would not go more than a once every second oil change which is once a year at 2000 miles or so but I want to know if I could get away with this.

 

[ZeeOSix]

I've left oil filters on for 2-1/2 to 3 years before on vehicles not driven a lot of miles/year ... still look fine inside.

What you want to do is AOK.

 

[spasm3]

Welcome to the forum. It depends alot on what filter you chose to run. If you only put 1000 miles in 6 months, i would run a filter like mobil 1, or bosch distance plus and change at one year.

 

[Whimsey]

Originally Posted By: ZeeOSix
I've left oil filters on for 2-1/2 to 3 years before on vehicles not driven a lot of miles/year ... still look fine inside.

What you want to do is AOK.

Whimsey

 

[Realtech214]

filter change once a year is probably alright of course you can go longer

 

[gregk24]

I would say no more than a year, the glue inside does break down.

 

[y_p_w]

I'm pretty sure that I've left on an oil filter for about two years. I didn't cut it open, but the media was intact. It was on my wife's Civic where I didn't get ramps until recently. And the owners manual says that every other change is OK for filter changes, so I just changed the oil since I could reach it.

 

[Rolla07]

Why dont you just change both oil and filter once a year?

 

[toneydoc]

At only 1-2k miles a year, you could go 2 years on a good filter and not worry about it. It will not disintegrate or explode.

 

[FetchFar]

Originally Posted By: toneydoc
At only 1-2k miles a year, you could go 2 years on a good filter and not worry about it. It will not disintegrate or explode.

Yes, filters are really more a function of miles and dusty conditions. To get the wear particles out in the 1 to 20 micron range, most filters can't do that, the only one I've seen that can is www.microgreenfilter.com .

 

[ecotourist]

I change the spin on filter on my 2007 Honda Accord V6 every second change, as recommended by Honda. I use a good quality filter, either HAMP or Wix. That works out to once a year and about 15,000 km.

I also change the oil filter insert every second change on my 2000 BMW 528i. My reasoning is that the "normal" oil and filter change interval is about 25,000 km. And since I change the oil once a year at 7 - 10,000 km, the OEM filter should be good to the alternate change, which is still well under 25,000 km. These filters still look pristine after 2 years. I started off changing them every change but decided I was wasting money.

ecotourist

 

[chubbs1]

1 year on about any filter I can think of. I see these pictures of warped filters but I have cut open no name filters that have been abused to all heck and they have been fine. In fact you could probably do 1 year OCI's as well. What kind of vehicle do you have? Is it a DI engine?

 

[FetchFar]

Of course, all this talk about how the oil filter "looks" doesn't get to the main point: What matters is the amount of clogging (pressure drop) across the filter. That you don't know, not even by oggling it. .... It would be nice if our cars had a pressure sensor on both sides of the filter and the computer told us, taking temperature into account, if the pressure drop was finally bad enough to flag a change.

 

[ZeeOSix]

Originally Posted By: FetchFar
Of course, all this talk about how the oil filter "looks" doesn't get to the main point: What matters is the amount of clogging (pressure drop) across the filter. That you don't know, not even by oggling it. .... It would be nice if our cars had a pressure sensor on both sides of the filter and the computer told us, taking temperature into account, if the pressure drop was finally bad enough to flag a change.


Jim Allen here on the board has a delta-p sensor and data logger setup on his truck. He recently said he ran a PureOne for 15K miles and the delta-p didn't increase much at all. Of course his engine is probably clean inside.

 

[dnewton3]

Addtionally, Jim has indicated that in his trips to a few filter makers, three years in service is a no-brainer, and the "iffy" tooth-sucking starts around 5 years. That is of course, time based and not mileage based.

I personally have four pieces of equipment (Duramax truck, Kubota tractor, Scag mower, classic Mustang) on three year lube/filter cycles. They don't accumlate enough use per year to justify changes. I feel very comfortable at 3 years. My Dmax UOA just went out; not back yet. If it comes back OK, I will heading into the fourth year for the oil/filter.

 

[LotI]

Originally Posted By: ecotourist
I change the spin on filter on my 2007 Honda Accord V6 every second change, as recommended by Honda. I use a good quality filter, either HAMP or Wix. That works out to once a year and about 15,000 km.

I also change the oil filter insert every second change on my 2000 BMW 528i. My reasoning is that the "normal" oil and filter change interval is about 25,000 km. And since I change the oil once a year at 7 - 10,000 km, the OEM filter should be good to the alternate change, which is still well under 25,000 km. These filters still look pristine after 2 years. I started off changing them every change but decided I was wasting money.

ecotourist

+1.

I'm going forward with this plan on my MINI, 7,500 miles oil, 15k miles filter.

 

[Jim Allen]

I am comfortable with three years. That is mostly based on interviews with oil filter engineering professionals who state they were fine in most cases with 3-5 years. Once the lawyers and marketing people make proclamations, that info will be "filtered" (pun intended) for the public to reflect a lowest-common-denominator time recommendation to make it as idiot-proof as possible and to sell as many filters as possible. Filter media is tested for deterioration over time in the chemical soup that is motor oil and while you will likely never find the information readily available, the filter manufacturers have it.

I just cut open a P1 that was in my truck for 2.5 years and 15K miles... it was still serviceable. (I will post the pics soon after I collate some DP data... my data logger records for times per second, so I get hundreds of pages of data to sort thru).

You can go multi-years with the oil too as long as a few storage and operational conditions are met. To Whit:

+when the vehicle is run, most of the time it gets FULLY warmed up... that means driving for a minimum of 15 minutes in warmish weather and about 30 minutes in cool weather.You need to get the oil up to a hot, stabilized temp for a period of time to bake out fuel dilution and moisture.

+decent storage conditions with no major temperature swings to make condensation or a high humidity storage situation.

If you can't do either of these things, a shorter time interval is safer but a year is a breeze for both oil and the filter unless you are leaving your rig parked in the jungle, or a beach or someplace worse ( : < ).

UOA is recommended to verify the oil condition at yearly intervals. You only need to do that a couple of times and once you verify everything is OK, you don't need to do it more unless you change the storage/operational equation in some major way.

Like dnewton3, I run multi years on everything and have a farm tractor that regularly goes over three years (I go by miles or hours only).

 

[FetchFar]

Originally Posted By: ZeeOSix

Jim Allen here on the board has a delta-p sensor and data logger setup on his truck. He recently said he ran a PureOne for 15K miles and the delta-p didn't increase much at all. Of course his engine is probably clean inside.


And this is why I love this forum! I can think of the coolest/craziest tech stuff, and then find out someone has already done it. .... That is good to know about the delta pressure. My 07 BMW 530 monitors EVERYTHING with
sensors, except no delta p. The BMW even has an oil quality and level sensor, and its
supposed to detect contaminants and viscosity change (changes the capacitance of the fluid).
So that leaves the filter as the big unknown! Luckily the cartridge filter is EZ to change from the top of the engine, so I'll get in there every 6 months.