Originally Posted By: LeakySeals
Purolator may want to reconsider their metal and cap campaign. It's a bust. The metal end cap is the problem. It doesn't flex stretching a the paper. Add a spirited driver and the fast-flowing oil rips the pleat at the metal end cap.
Bull. Everybody else (including Fram in their better filters) uses metal end caps, and have no issues. The whole "see, the end caps have the same characteristics as the filter media so they're BETTER" is just an ad campaign to sell low-end filters and defuse criticism, IMO. There may be some truth to it, but it would better be stated as "see, we can get away with a whole lot less filter media with big, wide pleates and poorer control of the pleat spacing if we band-aid it with flexible end-caps."
These old Purolators obviously had a problem in the assembly process that over-stressed a couple of pleats near the seam. IMO its not a design issue per se, and its certainly not a metal end cap issue. It was an assembly problem, and appears to be fixed in the new product line (we hope...)