The New Fram Ultra......

[Blagoje]

Sad to see this as the XG7317 is the filter that I've been using for both the Altima & Civic in my signature. I may try to grab some old stock at Walmart before they change...if this is even possible.

If you have something like a farm store in your area check there. The Rural King store in my hometown still has a massive amount of old Ultras in the Rank Group packaging for only $7 per. I will probably clean the hem out of XG7317 filters the next time I am there.

 

[tyman]

If you have something like a farm store in your area check there. The Rural King store in my hometown still has a massive amount of old Ultras in the Rank Group packaging for only $7 per. I will probably clean the hem out of XG7317 filters the next time I am there.

Was at Orschelns last night for a new mower tire. Their Fram ultras are 9.99+, depending on which one.

 

[Tjbouwhu]

Date code on the filter looks to be A11941 or A11041.……..fairly new filter.

So what do the letters/numbers stand for...month, year, ?

 

[bullwinkle]

I had nothing better to do today. So I sent this, let's see what the response is.View attachment 67029

If you hear anything other than marketing boilerplate it will be a miracle. I had hopes that First Brands would be better than Mann & Hummel (& their Wix takeover) and not cheapen up their premium, flagship (IMO) product-but, barring a positive independent test, I’m done with the Ultra, although I have a decent stash of older ones.

 

[Job]

A roll of stainless sheet isn't cheap and maybe if they want to keep USA on the box they can't do it. From the roll it has to be cut, sized for each model, perforated, made into a tube, cleaned, inserted into a filter, and glued. I don't even know how they were putting that extra in for $9 when others are charging $14 without a stainless screen. People expect too much for their $9 retail price these days for a USA made product. $9 at WM must mean no more than $4-5 to produce the filter, maybe less. There still is all the rest of the steel, the spring, media, rubber parts, glue, paint, box, and then there are the office employees, the building, the utilities, the building maintenance, the insurance, the computers, the internet, the phones, the parking lot, shipping and receiving, someone to answer questions from the public, on and on.

 

[bullwinkle]

As a fellow accountant I hear you. Can’t stand the “bean counter” excuse. It’s childish

Not to come across as too childish, but the average accountant has ONE JOB, and I think everybody knows what that is…

 

[bullwinkle]

A roll of stainless sheet isn't cheap and maybe if they want to keep USA on the box they can't do it. From the roll it has to be cut, sized for each model, perforated, made into a tube, cleaned, inserted into a filter, and glued. I don't even know how they were putting that extra in for $9 when others are charging $14 without a stainless screen. People expect too much for their $9 retail price these days for a USA made product. $9 at WM must mean no more than $4-5 to produce the filter, maybe less. There still is all the rest of the steel, the spring, media, rubber parts, glue, paint, box, and then there are the office employees, the building, the utilities, the building maintenance, the insurance, the computers, the internet, the phones, the parking lot, shipping and receiving, someone to answer questions from the public, on and on.

The Ulras I’ve cut had a black coated steel screen for a filter media reinforcement, and I agree they can’t be cheap to manufacture. Unfortunately, instead of raising the price from $9-10 to $13-14 (or whatever it would cost to turn a profit), they chose to go the other way instead. Disappointing, but not surprising when conglomerates buy up most of the competition, got to make that $ back somehow.

 

[Danh]

Not to come across as too childish, but the average accountant has ONE JOB, and I think everybody knows what that is…

That’s like saying “every mechanic has ONE JOB, and I think everybody knows what that is” (hint: performing unnecessary work to take advantage of unsuspecting customers).

And last I heard, the people who make decisions like the recent Fram Ultra are far, far removed from the “average accountant”. If you need someone to blame here look at senior management, not the poor guys in the trenches simply reporting facts.

 

[Zee09]

Not to come across as too childish, but the average accountant has ONE JOB, and I think everybody knows what that is…

I call that being short sighted.
Why save pennies when you have a mass exodus from a once premium product. That loss will be huge.

I never cheap out on materials. In my business I pay up for the best raw materials possible. Cheap insurance from the crybabies we all deal with in the digital age.

Not to mention premium materials really are not that much more expensive if you buy in volume and shop smartly.

Only an idiot would change a winning product like the Ultra....

 

[Pablo]

Not to come across as too childish, but the average accountant has ONE JOB, and I think everybody knows what that is…

That is pretty much wrong. I worked in manufacturing my entire life - and despite your implication that people in accounting are somehow responsible for design changes - there are a variety of job types for "accountants". In fact a lot of times, material costs and in particular actual labor costs are not actually watched or controlled by accountants. I would ask them for numbers and well..............they didn't know precisely. Other people and departments do that - well they did their best to extract it from the ERP

Do companies make changes to take costs out of products? Of course. But blaming accountants is laughable as the others point out.

 

[Job]

The Ulras I’ve cut had a black coated steel screen for a filter media reinforcement, and I agree they can’t be cheap to manufacture. Unfortunately, instead of raising the price from $9-10 to $13-14 (or whatever it would cost to turn a profit), they chose to go the other way instead. Disappointing, but not surprising when conglomerates buy up most of the competition, got to make that $ back somehow.

I've never seen black coated on the ones I have cut or looked into the center tube at. I have one right here at the desk. I've seen that on Champ Labs and Wix, like black window screening. Motorking said it was stainless steel. The Ultra has diamond shaped holes and is natural color. Had.
I wouldn't be surprised if the price goes up a dollar or two to be more in line with other filters. As sales increase, they don't have to buy more machinery now either, as they increased production capacity.

Here is a depiction of the Ultra mesh, which is still on their website. Actually the screen has to be pleated with the media, more difficulty involved. Maybe not all models are going to the new media,

https://www.fram.com/products/consumer-products/oil-filters/fram-ultra-syntheticsup-sup-oil-filter/

 

[OVERKILL]

Hastings, Baldwin, Champ, etc.......Amsoil contracts the filter assembly.

Thought so. Is the media still the Donaldson Synteq stuff?

 

[OVERKILL]

I see no evidence that they've degraded the filter's efficiency in any way, which is what is being assumed here.

We're seeing many comments here that are really uniformed. Nobody here knows the reason for the change. It may be as simple as making a better filter media that simply doesn't require the complexity of the metal mesh.

And won't go 20K? Funny, both Mobil 1 and Walmart Supertech claim 20k life with no metal mesh, so I'm not sure why Fram can't pull that off, while at the same time blowing those filters away with their efficiency.

I personally think the metal mesh was all about marketing to give people the perception of strength. Maybe we should be more upset that they may have used that feature all these years to fool us.

The purpose of synthetic and micro glass depth filtration media is to provide both improved efficiency and increased flow over cellulose. Cellulose filters at the surface, so you require more pleat area to keep flow high and delta-p reasonably low. Depth media will flow more for the same pleat surface area because the filtration happens inside the media (hence the depth filtration) rather than pore blocking taking place on the surface.

Because the depth filtration media isn't rigid, it requires some form of structural support on the backside, hence the wire mesh.

It sounds like they've changed to putting the depth filtration media as a facer on traditional cellulose in this case, which will negatively impact the flow characteristics while keeping efficiency relatively unchanged, which allows them to delete the wire mesh backing and allow the filters to be assembled more easily. From an efficiency perspective, since other filters they are producing, like the Mobil 1 can, are already produced in this manner, it makes sense. For the consumer, it means a filter that will filter just as well, but will necessarily give-up some flow because of the cellulose backer replacing the mesh IMHO.

 

[Zee09]

The purpose of synthetic and micro glass depth filtration media is to provide both improved efficiency and increased flow over cellulose. Cellulose filters at the surface, so you require more pleat area to keep flow high and delta-p reasonably low. Depth media will flow more for the same pleat surface area because the filtration happens inside the media (hence the depth filtration) rather than pore blocking taking place on the surface.

Because the depth filtration media isn't rigid, it requires some form of structural support on the backside, hence the wire mesh.

It sounds like they've changed to putting the depth filtration media as a facer on traditional cellulose in this case, which will negatively impact the flow characteristics while keeping efficiency relatively unchanged, which allows them to delete the wire mesh backing and allow the filters to be assembled more easily. From an efficiency perspective, since other filters they are producing, like the Mobil 1 can, are already produced in this manner, it makes sense. For the consumer, it means a filter that will filter just as well, but will necessarily give-up some flow because of the cellulose backer replacing the mesh IMHO.

True. I wonder is less flow from the start is an issue waiting to happen at 20k?

 

[Sayjac]

.....The Ultra has diamond shaped holes and is natural color.....

By natural, stainless steel color. All I've ever seen. Whatever color it WAS, gone now. Linked is vid showing good pics of now former Ultra and Titanium ( l believe latter will be same as Ultra) media and wire backing.

 

[ZeeOSix]

.It sounds like they've changed to putting the depth filtration media as a facer on traditional cellulose in this case, which will negatively impact the flow characteristics while keeping efficiency relatively unchanged, which allows them to delete the wire mesh backing and allow the filters to be assembled more easily. From an efficiency perspective, since other filters they are producing, like the Mobil 1 can, are already produced in this manner, it makes sense. For the consumer, it means a filter that will filter just as well, but will necessarily give-up some flow because of the cellulose backer replacing the mesh IMHO.

The number of pleats supposedly increased (per Fram email info posted earlier), probably to help keep the holding capacity high and delta-p low. So they save money on removing the screen, but spend more money per filter to give it more media.

I believe Fram when they say the efficiency will still be 99% @ 20μ, but I'd like to see a flow vs delta-p curve of an old vs new model. I'm sure Fram engineers focused on flow performance, but it's all a balancing act with media design, so some flow performance could have been given up. Can't say without test data.

 

[ZeeOSix]

True. I wonder is less flow from the start is an issue waiting to happen at 20k?

If Fram is still saying it's still an "upto 20K filter", then the holding capacity and efficiency vs loading performance has to be as good or close to the old media performance.

The ISO efficiency is the average of new vs fully loaded, and the holding capacity is based on the max delta-p allowed before the media is considered "fully loaded" - ie: end of filter life (end of test). It all ties into each other.

 

[Zee09]

If Fram is still saying it's still an "upto 20K filter", then the holding capacity and efficiency vs loading performance has to be as good or close to the old media performance.

The ISO efficiency is the average of new vs fully loaded, and the holding capacity is based on the max delta-p allowed before the media is considered "fully loaded" - ie: end of filter life (end of test). It all ties into each other.

Time will tell won't it.
Just this thread alone is something I would like to avoid if I was FRAM.

Right now I don't think we are getting as good or better. I really don't. The results will soon be revealed right here on BITOG...

 

[ZeeOSix]

Time will tell won't it.
Just this thread alone is something I would like to avoid if I was FRAM.

Right now I don't think we are getting as good or better. I really don't. The results will soon be revealed right here on BITOG...

Fram will never show a flow vs delta-p curve, or an efficiency vs particle size and loading curve to the public like @Ascent Filtration Testing did in his ISO test lab.

 

[Averroes]

When it comes to accountants being “bean counters” that’s more audit based. Think the Big 4 firms. Accountants cover a large area, some a corporate accountants, some are NFP, government and the list goes on.

The accountants are told what to do by execs, they cant say no or yes, they can only “suggest”. I had plenty of instances where the client was making a bad move and not giving the customers the bang for their buck but who am I to tell Mr/Mrs CEO that they’re out of touch with reality?

To be honest it comes down to the bottom line. If Fram was in a financial pinch they could easily lay off staff, reduces dividend payments to keep retained earnings, reduce executive bonuses which is in the millions and find new suppliers as per Porters 5 forces.

They’re essentially increasing their profit margin. It’s like tax revenue vs tax greed, can you tell me the difference? Goes to show that no matter how much loyalty you show a company they’ll still snake you. Hence the only loyalty I have is to my wallet and my self.