Hey everyone, long time lurker and today an issue arose which finally forced me to make an account.
Long story short the fram situation had me looking into other filters and after seeing cut opens of the purolator Tech line specifically the TL14612 I decided to bite the bullet and go for the low amazon pricing. During my hunt for new filters I built up a small collection of random brands and noticed something was off.
It looks like theres a metal spring on the outside of what I would presume is the bypass valve which did not seem to match what Ive seen online and even on the same amazon post listing of another reviewer.
Its about 3/4 inch long by the looks of it and isnt movable by finger to decompress. For reference the other 4 STP/ fram/ ecogard/ apremium filters I have laying around have that same bypass cap when you look down it but no spring.
Then to make things even more suspicious on the same amazon listing page, another reviewer was complaining about the quality of the glue which is unrelated but his china made (same as this) filter showed different internals. No spring, threading is outward while mine is more inward. No cap on the bottom either. There is also no mention of a bypass valve on the box but there is on the store listing which is raising more red flags.
So I guess my question is does anyone have any insight as to what this is and if it is safe to use? Obviously the best course of action right now is to use something else but for the sake of not throwing these little guys away I was wondering if this is normal/safe to use on a vehicle despite all of this suspicious manufacturing. Also worth noting I ended up buying a 12 pack of the same tech line the TL10241 to use on a briggs riding mower engine since thread matched and cheaper than briggs filters and they have the same spring setup and such as this but a beater riding mower isn't as valuable as a family's daily driver. Could also be a fraudulent seller shilling their supply off for all I know.
Long story short the fram situation had me looking into other filters and after seeing cut opens of the purolator Tech line specifically the TL14612 I decided to bite the bullet and go for the low amazon pricing. During my hunt for new filters I built up a small collection of random brands and noticed something was off.
It looks like theres a metal spring on the outside of what I would presume is the bypass valve which did not seem to match what Ive seen online and even on the same amazon post listing of another reviewer.
Its about 3/4 inch long by the looks of it and isnt movable by finger to decompress. For reference the other 4 STP/ fram/ ecogard/ apremium filters I have laying around have that same bypass cap when you look down it but no spring.
Then to make things even more suspicious on the same amazon listing page, another reviewer was complaining about the quality of the glue which is unrelated but his china made (same as this) filter showed different internals. No spring, threading is outward while mine is more inward. No cap on the bottom either. There is also no mention of a bypass valve on the box but there is on the store listing which is raising more red flags.
So I guess my question is does anyone have any insight as to what this is and if it is safe to use? Obviously the best course of action right now is to use something else but for the sake of not throwing these little guys away I was wondering if this is normal/safe to use on a vehicle despite all of this suspicious manufacturing. Also worth noting I ended up buying a 12 pack of the same tech line the TL10241 to use on a briggs riding mower engine since thread matched and cheaper than briggs filters and they have the same spring setup and such as this but a beater riding mower isn't as valuable as a family's daily driver. Could also be a fraudulent seller shilling their supply off for all I know.
There are various designs used, but all uses some kind of spring action. You could cut one of the 12 open, or look for a similar filter that's been cut and posted here or on YouTube. It's probably fine.