Purolator tears still an issue?

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skaughtz you provided an accurate, objective, non biased, third party observation that we should all be able to agree on.

Don't worry about all the flak you will undoubtedly take because of your contribution to this thread. If we had more reasoning like this, a lot of stupid squabbles could be avoided! Lol
 
Originally Posted By: cptbarkey
Originally Posted By: skaughtz
So I've been reading through all of the posts in the multiple threads on this topic and as someone new to this discussion here are my 2 cents on it, for what that's worth...

A lesson in quantitative statistical analysis would be well applied to this topic. To put it simply, nothing here validates a claim that Purolators tear more than any other filter. The sample size is absurdly low and ridiculously skewed. No one is cutting open and checking Mobil 1, Wix, K&N, etc., filters with either the same frequency or fervor as Purolator filters, and as such no statistically significant claim can be made that the latter tear more often. Only a gut feeling. Nor are any variables controlled in any way (unless OCIs, oil type, driving conditions, etc. are agreed to have no direct effect on filter condition). For all we know, issues such as those being observed could be an acceptable and predicted rate of occurrence for every 1 in 100, 1,000 or 10,000 filters of any brand. Does it appear to be a disturbing trend? Absolutely. Is it correct to say that a trend exists? Absolutely not. Further, 99.9% of Purolator buyers/users would likely never know even if an issue did exist, so it makes no sense to me for the company to publicly acknowledge the claims of a few people from a web forum (no offense intended... I was only clued in by an Amazon review mentioning that the topic existed on BITOG... as I was going to buy another PureOne for my next oil change).

What I do believe, however, is that this is a potential headache that I don't have the patience for and that ignorance is bliss. And who has time for all of that math? So I will be spending the extra $4 for Mobil 1 filters for my next oil changes until people start dissecting them and find issues that I am currently unaware of. Then I guess I'll just try to screw a sponge or a coffee filter or something onto my car instead.


well said, now here is the part where you are ignored, chastised, accused of heresy, an employee of said manufacturer, and ridiculed. there are some nuggets of gold in this particular subforum, but most of it lately has been blatant hogwash. thanks for contributing by the way.


Since he said there appears to be a disturbing trend and he isn't using P1's, when are you, sayjac, and jk363 going to start in on him like you have everyone else who said exactly the same thing?
 
You might want to read his statement again there Pete.

And we won't be the ones to chastise him. I can only speak for myself, but I think we (collectively) all agree with him.
 
On cue the lead troll shows up. And show me where like you, I specifically called anyone out.

Crawl back in your hole.
 
Originally Posted By: FutureDoc
Ok, lets talk experimental research statistics (really empirical research design). If you wanted to ask "does Purolator tear more than BrandX or x, y, and/or z, then yes, you would want to do a controlled experiment with the same conditions. That is because the brand itself would be the independent variable we want to deem significant. However, because this is not a "comparison between brands" but rather an issue of Purolator quality control/application. Is the Hudson more polluted that other rivers is a different question and design that asking if the Hudson River is polluted. You just test the item in question. Furthermore, the same "controlled" method might not return as rich of a dataset. "Fieldwork" is useful. You can't always do some work in controlled labs and return the same data as compared to the field. Think about running 70-100 sample test of all Purolator stock (including jobbers) on all vehicle makes from the last 25 years, on all motor oil weights and brands. Not really feasible. Worse if you do a dozen or so driving types, climates, commutes, etc. Thus when ask "are tears still and issue, small data-sets are still useful. You kinda answered the issue yourself.


Well, I think you have to compare it to different filters on equal grounds, don't you? If you see 100/1000 Purolators tear (all of these numbers are completely arbitrary for discussion purposes), then sure, you can say that Purolators tear. You have observed that happening. But what about the other brands? If failure rates are equal in Wix then who cares about Purolator? If you observe the same trend in each brand then you would just have to conclude that it is the nature of the beast when it comes to oil filters and tears. As far as I can tell it would be the only conclusive way to determine if Purolator has a brand-specific issue, or if tears in media are par for the course. At that point even small sample sizes (such as those reported here) would be useful in establishing a trend provided each brand has been observed equally.

Originally Posted By: FutureDoc
So if a few dozen that actually open the filter notice an issue (with some having back-to-back filter failures), there is a problem. From a stat standpoint, I might have an equal chance of winning the lottery than getting back-to-back filter failures. If it was 1 in 10,000, then back to back filters with different production dates should be 1 in 100,000,000. Getting multiple failure by such a small subset (BITOG), that 1 in 10,000 failure rate means that of the BITOG population, would have to had purchased and opened 610,000 Purolator filter to reach that mark in 6 or so months. If it was even 1 in 100, you should see 549 "everything is ok" filter threads for the 61 reported failure in the last year.


Is there something of a known rate for the failure of filters in the industry? I'm legitimately asking as I was under the impression that it was unknown. If that's the case then at least there is a baseline to compare to, in which case I would agree with you that seeing so many failures on BITOG is abnormal.

And just to clarify, I didn't think media tears were even a slightly common occurrence so there probably IS something going on at Purolator (poor media, quality control, whatever). But it's still just an educated guess at this point without any real concrete numbers. This is a bit of a reach, but if you flip a coin 100 times and it comes up heads 75 times, it doesn't mean that heads is more/less likely to occur on the next flip. It just means that you observed heads 50 times more than tails. After 1,000 flips it could be 75 heads and 925 tails. Unlikely, sure, but not impossible. Same thing with the filter tears being observed here. It could just be a coincidence.

And with that said now I feel like kind of a nitwit for going this in depth on the subject, haha. Filters aren't supposed to tear and if they are, it probably means something is wrong. Which is enough for me because I don't really care... I'll just use M1. It has been a bit of a slow day today
smile.gif
 
Originally Posted By: skaughtz
Well, I think you have to compare it to different filters on equal grounds, don't you? If you see 100/1000 Purolators tear (all of these numbers are completely arbitrary for discussion purposes), then sure, you can say that Purolators tear. You have observed that happening. But what about the other brands? If failure rates are equal in Wix then who cares about Purolator? If you observe the same trend in each brand then you would just have to conclude that it is the nature of the beast when it comes to oil filters and tears. As far as I can tell it would be the only conclusive way to determine if Purolator has a brand-specific issue, or if tears in media are par for the course. At that point even small sample sizes (such as those reported here) would be useful in establishing a trend provided each brand has been observed equally.


Well, I have not posted the 2-3 Wix filters I have cut open since because it was a non-issue, everything looked fine. The amount of work I am willing to do is less for a "fine" filter than a failed filter. People do not call up the health department when their meals are "fine". The numbers are hypothetical... but it should help to show that the lieklyhood of having a media tear should be extremely low. There should not be so many filter failures that the "internet" forum created a spreadsheet. If it was 1 in 100, I would not use the filter, if it was 1 in 1000, I am still not keen on those odds, if it was 1 in 10,000 then it should have been nearly impossible for me to ever see back-to-back failures. What was the OCOD failure rates? I am not sure but a few folks would agree that the rates were too high. We obsess to much over noack so what do you think would happen if 1 in 100 bottles of oil were "bad"? Oil filters have one job, filter oil. Tears defeat their job... and any record of failure is brand specific. WIX failure has no impact on Purolator or vice-versa. I had never had a true failure before the Purolator tearing issue. Sure, some looked like they were on too long but not obvious failures.

Originally Posted By: skaughtz
Is there something of a known rate for the failure of filters in the industry? I'm legitimately asking as I was under the impression that it was unknown. If that's the case then at least there is a baseline to compare to, in which case I would agree with you that seeing so many failures on BITOG is abnormal.

And just to clarify, I didn't think media tears were even a slightly common occurrence so there probably IS something going on at Purolator (poor media, quality control, whatever). But it's still just an educated guess at this point without any real concrete numbers. This is a bit of a reach, but if you flip a coin 100 times and it comes up heads 75 times, it doesn't mean that heads is more/less likely to occur on the next flip. It just means that you observed heads 50 times more than tails. After 1,000 flips it could be 75 heads and 925 tails. Unlikely, sure, but not impossible. Same thing with the filter tears being observed here. It could just be a coincidence.

And with that said now I feel like kind of a nitwit for going this in depth on the subject, haha. Filters aren't supposed to tear and if they are, it probably means something is wrong. Which is enough for me because I don't really care... I'll just use M1. It has been a bit of a slow day today
smile.gif



If you flip a coin 100 times and 75% it came up heads, that is a flag on the coin. You might expect some deviation but not a 3:1 odds (when the expected outcome is 1:1). That would cause even the most corrupt gaming commissioner to balk. 925 out That is beyond the likely error and I would have no issue say that is not a significant finding. 99% CI.

Lets just say that when I opened my filters, I was shocked when they were identical to the failure posted here. Then the same failure 3k miles later.
 
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Originally Posted By: jk_636
You might want to read his statement again there Pete.

And we won't be the ones to chastise him. I can only speak for myself, but I think we (collectively) all agree with him.


Went back and looked again. Sure enough, it still reads the same. No different from just about everyone else's take on the matter. But you three stooges practically knocked each other out of the way to figuratively get his junk in your mouths.

I can only conclude it is either because he went with an M1 instead of a Fram, or you three stooges, despite a good effort, just aren't especially bright and verbally felating someone who uses a few big words inflates your sense of self worth, even if you don't really understand everything they said.
 
Originally Posted By: sayjac
On cue the lead troll shows up. And show me where like you, I specifically called anyone out.

Crawl back in your hole.


Dry your eyes and get over it. Or don't.
 
Trolling.gif
As I thought, no constructive/substantive response, your MO.

Lots of pm's here regarding now lead troll status.

Carry on.
 
I've cut 3 Mobil 1 filters open. Two were posted here, one wasn't. All three looked great, so I didn't bother posting the 3rd out of redundancy.

I understand where "skaughtz" is coming from. But based on the anecdotal reports, I plan to avoid Puros until I see a steady stream of them that show them being fixed.
 
I have some pictures you need to see of a recently posted 14670.

Empirical evidence is always better than anecdotal information.
 
Originally Posted By: skaughtz
So I've been reading through all of the posts in the multiple threads on this topic and as someone new to this discussion here are my 2 cents on it, for what that's worth...

A lesson in quantitative statistical analysis would be well applied to this topic. To put it simply, nothing here validates a claim that Purolators tear more than any other filter. The sample size is absurdly low and ridiculously skewed. No one is cutting open and checking Mobil 1, Wix, K&N, etc., filters with either the same frequency or fervor as Purolator filters, and as such no statistically significant claim can be made that the latter tear more often.


LoL ... there are plenty of other brand of oil filters cut open here to get a decent sampling for failures, and there are basically ZERO tears in any other filter brands except Purolators (or made by Purolator filters).

One exception is the Super Tech, ecore design, that was out there a few years ago that also tore media because of wide pleat spacing and too open of a plastic center tube.

And please explain to everyone that there were ZERO reported Purolator filters with tears until about a year ago. What are the "statistical chances" that there were no reported tears for 10 years, then "bang", there where over 60 reported. Doesn't take a statistical genius to see there was something that changed that caused a reliability problem.
 
Originally Posted By: jk_636
skaughtz you provided an accurate, objective, non biased, third party observation that we should all be able to agree on.


LoL ... "all" means you, barkey and skaughtz.
grin.gif


skaughtz - you only have 15 posts, and you have zero history on what's transpired on this issue over the last year on this chat board. Look at this spread sheet - which should have about another 10~12 filters listed, but the author hasn't been keeping it up. Notice there aren't any other brand filters in there except ones made by Purolator (ie, including Bosch, Motorcraft).

Torn Filter Spreadsheet
 
Originally Posted By: ZeeOSix
Originally Posted By: jk_636
skaughtz you provided an accurate, objective, non biased, third party observation that we should all be able to agree on.


LoL ... "all" means you, barkey and skaughtz.
grin.gif


skaughtz - you only have 15 posts, and you have zero history on what's transpired on this issue over the last year on this chat board. Look at this spread sheet - which should have about another 10~12 filters listed, but the author hasn't been keeping it up. Notice there aren't any other brand filters in there except ones made by Purolator (ie, including Bosch, Motorcraft).

Torn Filter Spreadsheet


I already said that I agree with him (read your quote again)

Skaughtz here comes the backlash we collectively warned you about. Don't take it personally, no one else...well...most others don't.
 
Originally Posted By: demarpaint
Wow you can lead a horse to water but.............



...you have to send it away for certified horse-water-irrigation to make it drink?
 
Quote:
And just to clarify, I didn't think media tears were even a slightly common occurrence so there probably IS something going on at Purolator (poor media, quality control, whatever). But it's still just an educated guess at this point without any real concrete numbers.


Here's where I sort of agree with you. I definitely agree that something is "probably" going on at Purolator. I think that we're a little past "educated guess" status at this point though.

I have posted a total (IIRC) of two dissected Purolators. One was a Proline branded filter, a PPL24651. No tears, looked fine. Then I cut open a Pure One, PL14459. It had the usual tears, in this case 3. I think this is the first Pure One I've ever used, so I probably won't buy another one.

There are lots of cut open filters posted here. Most are not torn, some are. I have cut open probably less than 30 filters in my "career", and two have had media failures. One was a NAPA Pro Select, and one was a Pure One. I haven't used a Pro Select since, and I'm not going to use any more Purolators. I've cut open a bunch of Fram Extra Guards, and I haven't had any media failures with them. Some have looked ugly - wiggly media, wavy end caps, etc., but I haven't seen anything that makes me think they're continually bypassing dirty oil like a torn filter would.

The main reason that I haven't used Purolators much in the past is just availability - there's an O'Reilly close to me, as well as an Autozone. Pep Boys is farther away, and they're the big Purolator sellers around here. By the time Walmart started selling Purolators, the torn ones had started appearing here, so I didn't buy them.

Fram Extra Guard, Tough Guard, and Ultra filters are readily available at reasonable prices locally, and Wix/Napa Gold, Mobil 1, and Royal Purple filters aren't hard to find. With internet ordering, Baldwin, Hastings, and others are just a few clicks away. Why would I bother with Purolator?
 
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The tearing media seems roughly to appear when Mann took over. It isn't Purolator except in name and machinery. I am usually positive on products from German companies, but also think, in a stereotyping sort of way, German business persons are tough as nails about the bottom line. Not one word from them, no tech from Purolator coming here and answering questions.
They were a good oil filter company, probably the top of the heap, but no more for me when I can get sturdy Denso oil filters or Fram Ultras on sale. An oil filter should not tear during use under any circumstances, period.
 
So we blamed the media, but that was debunked since all filters
Don't fail.


Then we blamed the model numbers, but that didn't hold up either.

Then it was because only those that we're newly manufactured were defective. No dice.

Oh I know, let's blame the parent company, who happens to be one of Europes lead producers of high quality filters, they just screw the Americans and give
Them sub par products! (no one is buying that either.)

Bottom line: a couple filters tore under questionable circumstances, the BITOG community over reacted, now things are fine and people are starting to realize there is no cause for panic.

Don't worry folks, the sky is NOT falling.

Keep calm and Purolate on.
 
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