torn purolater wrecked my motor?

[Mr Nice]

Maybe very low oil level and she kept driving it.

These D17 Civic engines are ultra reliable with very basic maintenance. I inherited a 2005 Civic and low performance engine that can last a half million miles.

 

[dishdude]

Originally Posted By: Festiva_Man
Originally Posted By: dishdude
Not a chance that tear caused the engine to come apart like that.


saying that doesnt help anyone. mind explaining why?


It helps give you a reality check, and I shouldn't have to explain any further to someone with the working knowledge of an IC engine. The amount of damage shown in those pictures on a low mileage motor can only occur if it has been run low on oil. A small tear in the element is the same as the filter running in a very low state of bypass with a very significant amount of the oil flowing through the filter still being filtered, whatever tiny amount flows through that little tear is insignificant.

 

[crazyoildude]

Im not convinced this had anything to do with the filter.. Granted purolater is not my choice in filters at all anymore but i would have to actually see the engine and filter to see what really happened.I see engines all day long coming in to my engine shop with all kinds of filters some looking just like that.

 

[Festiva_Man]

Originally Posted By: aquariuscsm
Don't know if I missed in in your original post,how many miles was on this oil change?

i didnt say because i dont remember, the car got sold a few years ago. i did look at the oil change sticker and did not think it was abnormal. so it would have been under 10,000km.

Originally Posted By: Garak
Originally Posted By: montero1
Have Purolator pay for your motor? Good luck with that.

I suspect they would if there were actual evidence that the Purolator did the damage. In this case, there is merely speculation, done mostly as an intellectual exercise.

sure, but what would constitute actual evidence?

Originally Posted By: raytseng
You're trying to pin this all on a tear in the filter?

If so, you've got a bootstrap problem.
There's no way the first few particles would snowball effect that is this bad. The first few particles in your thought experiment are still going to get caught up in the media instead of being torn.
In your photo of the filter, there's plenty of particles caught despite the tear, so it's still working and causing no harm.

There's people who run with sludge oil and sand and grit in their oil it doesn't cause an issue, car gets sick but doesn't die.

From what you described, A defect in the bypass valve is a better suspect to lay all the blame, where you have complete oil starvation.

Other more likely possibilities
-wrong oil used or not changed.
-oil pump stopped working for some reason.

Also, are these cars manual transmission? If so, person could have shifted wrong and that's a better suspect as well.


nope, after tearing it apart thats the conclusion i came to. im asking for other opinions that i didnt think of. for example i hadnt thought of thorromig's scenario where someone intentionally tried to wreck it.
and why wouldnt it snowball? its got millions of revolutions to do it in, lots of cold starts... why would they get caught? oil takes the path of least resistance and those 2 tears amount to about the same size as the bypass valve opening which should be able to handle all or almost all of the flow right? a bunch got caught yes, but notice how its mostly all near the tears? and i wouldnt really call it caught. thats like saying that the oil gallerys caught the particles. or the bearings or oil pan caught them. thats just where they happened to be at the end.
ok.
i agree that that bypass valve probably would have something to do with it if the media wasnt torn. it could be the reason the media did tear in the first place. the bypass valve setting being so high could result in starvation in cold startups and if your rev high before the oil warms up. it could well be that the bypass valve caused more startup wear and tore the media and the torn media let all the particles through.
the sticker said it was changed, but quick lubes have been known to not actually change the oil. however it still is only 48k miles... wrong viscosity would have accelerated wear if it was 15w40 coupled with this oil filter, but people use all sorts of weird viscosities all the time. i drained the oil and i think i would have noticed if it was atf or something. it wasnt thick like gear oil, but a quick lube probly wouldnt have put that in...
could be with the oil pump. i took it apart and i didnt see anything wrong with it though. oil pickup had a bunch of junk in it but that screen is pretty huge.
thanks for the other ideas!

 

[ZeeOSix]

Yep, most likely something else caused the rapid decline of this engine. But having a tear in the filter probably helped make the total destruction occur a bit faster.

Even without the tear, if the filter got loaded up to the point of bypass, then it would essentially be like torn media letting unfiltered oil into the engine. So no matter what filter was on this engine, the end result would most likely have been the same.

 

[Kruse]

Did the Purolator filter tear? Like a lot of them, it obviously did. Did the tear make the engine fail? Highly unlikely. A torn E-Core with the media going into an oil passage could do it, but not a torn Purolator.
The bearing failed and some debris probably got through the tear, but the tear did not cause your engine failure.

 

[CarbonSteel]

Originally Posted By: Kruse
Did the Purolator filter tear? Like a lot of them, it obviously did. Did the tear make the engine fail? Highly unlikely. A torn E-Core with the media going into an oil passage could do it, but not a torn Purolator. The bearing failed and some debris probably got through the tear, but the tear did not cause your engine failure.
Agreed; much more going on with the overall failure than a torn filter. Lack of oil, high engine temperatures, poor quality oil, failed oil pump, these would all be the initial things to suspect.

 

[qwerty1234]

I would sue Purolater. It's possible it damaged the engine. With all the Purolater tears I'm a bit surprised that I have not seen a single lawsuit against the company.

 

[Festiva_Man]

Originally Posted By: Greasymechtech
Photos of a self destructed engine does not mean the filter caused the failure. If there was so much wear in the engine, then the filter isn't going to fix it or prevent catastrophic destruction. I believe in unrestricted flow vs. overly restricted filtration. No full flow needed. Bypass is good enough. Oil pump has a screen. And, stainless mesh high-micron full flows work well enough.

If the filter is so great, why does the Z06 Corvette require a initial break-in oil/filter change? It has a filter? Doesn't it work?

Full flow filtration farce

You are trying to blame a failure on a itty bitty tear that might allow some unfiltered oil thru the engine, like the bypass doesn't do that already.

Defective engine or defective owner(most likely)

Whats Honda's defense for the numerous spun bearings? Maybe an engineer that transferred from their Odyssey/Pilot transmission group to the engine group?


um, im not sure what your getting at with the corvette thing... you think full flows should last forever and never need changing? there is a lot more wear during break in, after break in is done you change the oil and filter to get rid of that metal. filter plugs up, contaminates smaller than the full flow can filter are still in the oil and some companies i have heard use a special break in oil so you want to get rid of all of that.
itty bitty? lol. the bypass is periodic, a tear is full time, there is a difference.
i believe both were defective.
i havent asked them about it, maybe i will ask about the other more common and serious issues with these cars and see if i get a response. thanks for that idea

Originally Posted By: slacktide_bitog
date code?

ill try to remember to look monday.

Originally Posted By: Mr Nice
Maybe very low oil level and she kept driving it.

These D17 Civic engines are ultra reliable with very basic maintenance. I inherited a 2005 Civic and low performance engine that can last a half million miles.

like i said, oil level was fine when i got it.
i would disagree, i have seen a lot of problems and heard of a lot of problems with these cars. head gaskets take a large chunk of them off the road right after the first scheduled coolant change and spun bearings seem to get a lot after that. auto trannies cratering took probly 1/3 of these cars off the road in the last 8 years and now that they arent worth much anymore the bearing that commonly goes in the manuel tranny takes a lot off the road too. although thats not engine related. a lot of the D17 civics in my local wrecker arent there because of body damage. or what i think is a lot anyway.

Originally Posted By: dishdude
Originally Posted By: Festiva_Man
Originally Posted By: dishdude
Not a chance that tear caused the engine to come apart like that.


saying that doesnt help anyone. mind explaining why?


It helps give you a reality check, and I shouldn't have to explain any further to someone with the working knowledge of an IC engine. The amount of damage shown in those pictures on a low mileage motor can only occur if it has been run low on oil. A small tear in the element is the same as the filter running in a very low state of bypass with a very significant amount of the oil flowing through the filter still being filtered, whatever tiny amount flows through that little tear is insignificant.

i have a decent understanding of how they work and i disagree, thats why you have to explain it more. 3-4gpm at 80psi when cold and 45psi when hot is not a lot. i think that probably half that could go through those 'tiny insignificant' tears when the oil is hot.

 

[Festiva_Man]

Originally Posted By: ZeeOSix
Yep, most likely something else caused the rapid decline of this engine. But having a tear in the filter probably helped make the total destruction occur a bit faster.

Even without the tear, if the filter got loaded up to the point of bypass, then it would essentially be like torn media letting unfiltered oil into the engine. So no matter what filter was on this engine, the end result would most likely have been the same.


yes, but what i am trying to say is that having a proper filter probably would have prevented a lot of wear from happening which would have prevented the filter from becoming overloaded.

Originally Posted By: Kruse
Did the Purolator filter tear? Like a lot of them, it obviously did. Did the tear make the engine fail? Highly unlikely. A torn E-Core with the media going into an oil passage could do it, but not a torn Purolator.
The bearing failed and some debris probably got through the tear, but the tear did not cause your engine failure.

no, all the debris going through the engine did. debris that the filter let through. thats why i still think the filter did. you get metal on metal contact in any motor, the filters job is to keep that from snowballing.

Originally Posted By: 2010_FX4
Originally Posted By: Kruse
Did the Purolator filter tear? Like a lot of them, it obviously did. Did the tear make the engine fail? Highly unlikely. A torn E-Core with the media going into an oil passage could do it, but not a torn Purolator. The bearing failed and some debris probably got through the tear, but the tear did not cause your engine failure.
Agreed; much more going on with the overall failure than a torn filter. Lack of oil, high engine temperatures, poor quality oil, failed oil pump, these would all be the initial things to suspect.

oil level was fine.
that could be, maybe the thermostat stuck closed or something... but the head gasket wasnt blown and that goes really really quick on these cars.
where do you buy low quality oil nowadays?
i looked at the oil pump, its a bit scored up but surprisingly not too bad. clearances are ok. what else should i check on it?

Originally Posted By: qwerty1234
I would sue Purolater. It's possible it damaged the engine. With all the Purolater tears I'm a bit surprised that I have not seen a single lawsuit against the company.

how do you prove it was caused by the filter? is there a perfect situation where you could prove well enough that it was caused by the filter to win? and for there being no other lawsuits its probably also partially because of filters not getting cut apart after a motor craters because everyone believes a filter could never cause that apparently.

 

[gregk24]

I doubt that filter caused all this damage. It certainly did not help though! This is the filter that was on my Accord when I purchased it, as soon as I had time I switched it out to a Fram Ultra and put in Pennzoil Platinum 0w20. I couldn't bear to cut it open lest I see a hole in the media.

 

[BigD1]

That filter has been on that car so long it's rusting and pitting.

 

[Festiva_Man]

Originally Posted By: Rendezvous
Originally Posted By: Festiva_Man
Originally Posted By: Inspecktor
That much wear and damage suggests either oil starvation or contamination, then it was run until final failure. Maybe a jealous ex boyfriend added something, or she did- I once saw a high school girl with dad's Lincoln with the hood up at a c-store. She wanted to know if she added oil right. Turns out she added a quart of PYB to the power steering reservoir until it was running all over the ground.

yikes... i once stopped a woman from fueling her gas car up with diesel. some people...
but, contamination is the filters job to remove. when one wear particle gets through it makes another, they each make more, and so on and so on. stop that first one and you prevent the rest from happening and you dont get a plugged up filter. i think some of the bearings did get a bit starved from having so much metal in there. the flakes were pretty big.

Originally Posted By: thorromig
Your just speculating like im going to -- college girl probably let her drunk boyfriend whip the snot & red line that motor till it blew apart after many of attempts to do so. Filter in no way caused that catastrophic damage -- pure speculation on both our parts. Its a dang shame cause Honda motors are known to be quite durable & almost bulletproof as long as you change the oil/filter within a reasonable interval.

yup, i know we both are. and that would cause a connecting rod to break yes. however in this particular engine the bearings got full of metal, spun, then caught and broke the connecting rod. if the filter had filtered out the first metal particles like i mentioned above then it wouldnt have happened for that reason. the engine would still easily have blown apart, just not from the wear particles. thats why even with your senario i think this was caused by the filter. if a good filter had been on it may have only lasted a few minutes longer, but maybe it wouldnt have broke. they do have rev limiters...
and i wouldnt say that this particular generation of civic motors are bulletproof. far far from it in fact. you can say that about other generations of civics, but not the 7th..




I used to work in a machine shop when I was in college and we fixed plenty of motors with bearing issues. Most of these motors were brought to us without being taken apart yet. Some of these motors were brought in before complete failure and some were not but never once did I see an oil filter remove all of the bearing material from the oil. All of these motors had bearing material fused to multiple parts of the engine. The longer the engine was ran the more metal there was. The oil filter didn't cause that engine failure. The engine got hurt and she kept driving it until failure.


interesting, thanks for mentioning that. there is a reason for that. i questioned the wisdom of most companies putting the bypass valve on the far end of the filter here a while back and was told by many members that the filter traps and holds every single particle very tightly and nothing ever gets through the bypass valve when it opens. but as you saw thats not true. the bypass valve does open on cold starts and when you rev high quickly in the first 10 min of driving or so. so if you have metal in there it does let it through and it gets stuck on engine parts and just stays there wearing, or it takes a score off and goes around again.
if something catastrophic happens a normal filter will catch all of it that you can see that gets pumped to it unless it plugs off too much and goes into bypass right then. its when you shut it off and start it up again, even just to load it onto a trailer or something that the bypass valve opens and a lot of what did get filtered out gets put back into the motor. even idling for 2 minutes onto and off of a trailer to get to a shop would be 2000 revolutions of the motor and the entire contents of the sump pumped through the filter 6 times while removing metal from the filter and filling the engine with it.
i agree what normally happens is the engine gets hurt and the filter tries to prevent the wear from snowballing but either cant because of getting plugged or the bypass opening; or it does its job but the initial problem doesnt get solved and that wrecks the motor. this isnt a normal filter though. in my mind it did take something else to start a problem like not changing the oil at least once a year, but that the oil filter made it a lot worse with its tear and with the bypass valve that doesnt open when it should-and that maybe a proper filter could have prevented it from dying for years even if there was another problem.
when you were at this machine shop what were some of the more common causes of bearing issues?

 

[qwerty1234]

I have a 2000 Honda Civic with the D16 engine, I think. The rest of car has given me problems but the engine runs like it's brand new and I have 170,000 miles. I run a strict 4,000 mile OCI.

 

[Festiva_Man]

Originally Posted By: BigD1
That filter has been on that car so long it's rusting and pitting.

nope, like i said, this sat outside in the weather for several years before i took it apart and i sprayed it down with a strong degreaser and pressurewashed it off before starting. all the paint was on the can before i washed it and i tried to see how much i could spray off while i was cleaning it... the can was down in the dirt and covered in snow and ice for 6 months of the year. water in the spring...

 

[dishdude]

OP is on to something here, troll Craigslist for cars with blown engines that have Purolator filters on them, and then have Purolator pay for a new engine!

Genius!

 

[qwerty1234]

dish, Purolators have been proven here time and again that they tear. I suspect you have a stash of Purolator filters and are trying to justify the product. It's clear that they are a risky product. I had 3 of the Classic's from Walmart. I threw them out when I saw the destruction.

 

[dishdude]

Originally Posted By: qwerty1234
dish, Purolators have been proven here time and again that they tear. I suspect you have a stash of Purolator filters and are trying to justify the product. It's clear that they are a risky product. I had 3 of the Classic's from Walmart. I threw them out when I saw the destruction.


I never said they don't tear, I am saying that little tear isn't going to cause catastrophic engine damage as the OP is claiming.

 

[Kuato]

Originally Posted By: Festiva_Man
Originally Posted By: Inspecktor
That much wear and damage suggests either oil starvation or contamination, then it was run until final failure. Maybe a jealous ex boyfriend added something, or she did- I once saw a high school girl with dad's Lincoln with the hood up at a c-store. She wanted to know if she added oil right. Turns out she added a quart of PYB to the power steering reservoir until it was running all over the ground.

yikes... i once stopped a woman from fueling her gas car up with diesel. some people...
but, contamination is the filters job to remove. when one wear particle gets through it makes another, they each make more, and so on and so on. stop that first one and you prevent the rest from happening and you dont get a plugged up filter. i think some of the bearings did get a bit starved from having so much metal in there. the flakes were pretty big.

Originally Posted By: thorromig
Your just speculating like im going to -- college girl probably let her drunk boyfriend whip the snot & red line that motor till it blew apart after many of attempts to do so. Filter in no way caused that catastrophic damage -- pure speculation on both our parts. Its a dang shame cause Honda motors are known to be quite durable & almost bulletproof as long as you change the oil/filter within a reasonable interval.

yup, i know we both are. and that would cause a connecting rod to break yes. however in this particular engine the bearings got full of metal, spun, then caught and broke the connecting rod. if the filter had filtered out the first metal particles like i mentioned above then it wouldnt have happened for that reason. the engine would still easily have blown apart, just not from the wear particles. thats why even with your senario i think this was caused by the filter. if a good filter had been on it may have only lasted a few minutes longer, but maybe it wouldnt have broke. they do have rev limiters...
and i wouldnt say that this particular generation of civic motors are bulletproof. far far from it in fact. you can say that about other generations of civics, but not the 7th..



With the quantity of particles you described (and photographed, thanks!) this engine was on its way out for a long time. You said it got regular maintenance, so the filter in the picture isn't the only one that got filled up with particles...even though it looks pretty ancient (edit: just read your in the dirt several years comment, but still).

IMO it's vehicle abuse and lack of maintenance. I'd think it was even run dry / with the oil pressure light on. Since you don't have a history on it (as in Purolators used, every one had a tear, etc) I think you'll be out of luck with any collection from them.

Your study about the bypass valve has merit, that could be part of the reason the Puros are having the failures...if they never go into bypass and the media is taking all of that pressure, then it's no wonder the paper fails.

 

[ZeeOSix]

Originally Posted By: Kuato
Your study about the bypass valve has merit, that could be part of the reason the Puros are having the failures...if they never go into bypass and the media is taking all of that pressure, then it's no wonder the paper fails.


Good point, and with the info from HangFire's post about Purolator testing his filter and finding it had 23 PSI delta-p across it with only 3 GPM of 30W @ 180 deg F, it sounds like maybe the bypass valves might not be working as they are intended to do.