Toyota V6 oil filter info

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Long time lurker...might have a few posts up...can't remember.

Anyway, I'm an ex toyota dealer tech, still do a lot of automotive diagnosis and repair...I've had a recent interest in oil filters after a few toyota V6 (3.4L, 4.0L) filter related issues have come up. First was a 3.4 that after skipping a day of driving, would have a solid knock for several seconds upon startup. The filter had less than 4K miles and less than 6 months old. Exchanged the orange filter for a Wix and the problem went away. The issue only occured once or twice so the motor should be OK. Second issue was on my wifes truck. 4.0L w/ 188K miles on it, well maintained, never an issue. Installed a "Pentius" filter, since the local jobber stocks them and said they were good. She drove it for a week and probably 40-60 drive cycles. I noticed a horrible knock one morning when she was leaving to drive our son to school. I replaced it with OE that day. One odd thing I noticed was that ZERO oil drained from the filter (inverted at about a 45° angle when installed) upon removal. I've NEVER, over the course of over 100 oil changes on the 2GR-FE engine in various vehicles, had a dry filter upon removal. With the new OE filter, the knock upon startup was significantly less pronounced, but still there...along with some lower end noise over 3000 rpms. The engine was damaged.
I decided to determine what was wrong with this filter, so I cut it open. I noticed that the ADBV didn't have a real positive seal against the top plate. Regardless of spring pressure pushing the element into the ADBV, the portion of the ADBV that creates the seal had no real pressure or deformation against the top plate...it was limited by the shape around the ID of the ADBV. I sourced a Denso, OEM from the dealer, and Mobil 1 filter, as well as some threaded plugs for the center hole. I made an adapter, submerged the filters in 5w-30 conventional oil meeting ILSAC GF5 and used a vacuum pump to accelerate the filling and saturation process, then installed the plugs, and wiped the filters clean externally. Each was weighed to establish a baseline. Each was then inverted on a rack and weighed every 2 hours for a day, then every day for a week. None lost a significant amount of oil, based on weight..which was surprising. The one that lost the most amount of weight after a week was the Denso. All others were insignificant.

Scratching my head, I cut the rest of them open. The Mobil 1 uses an orange ADBV...silcone. The OE toyota uses a black ADBV, not sure of the composition, but very pliable, and thin...serves its function well. One thing in common with these 2 is that with the ADBV sitting on top of the top plate, you can push the center of the rubber/silicone down and there is 1/8" or so of movement. This is an indication that there is some static tension of the ADBV against the top plate. With the Denso and the Pentius, there is no pressure, or minimal tension of the ADBV against the top plate to seal off the holes.

So I've determined the OE toyota and the Mobil 1 are of good designs and have very functional ADBVs. The Denso and Pentius seem to be more poorly designed, but still have somewhat functional ADBVs, when testing static sealing capability.

So...why did the Pentius filter empty itself in a short period of time? I have all the ADBVs sitting on the inverted top plates on my workbench. I grabbed the Denso and the Pentius ADBV valves and distorted them like a cowboy hat and held them that way for about 20 seconds, then set them back down on the top plates. The Denso immediately assumed it's original shape, sealing off the perimeter of the holes in the top plate. The pentius ADBV has a memory and held its shape, not sealing off the holes in the top plate while more than a minute passed.

Pictures tomorrow. But for now, if you have one of these engines, avoid Pentius. There is also this Youtube video...same part number, describing the same problem.
... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4Dq7uxvXLI

relevant info at about the 2:04 mark.

Pentius thus far fails to admit a problem.
 
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Toyota OEM filter is nitrile rubber. I can buy OEM for quite cheap so I use that or a Napa proselect but my intervals are short..5-6k miles. You might of had a faulty filter..to be honest i trust OEM, WIX, napa and fram tg or fram ultra. For the price i dont think its worth considering other filters.
 
I hesitate to bash Fram, but I will....they fail to understand critical elements. Fram ADBV sit flat over the holes in the top plate....the holes are punched, and not honed or made on plane with the rest of the the top plate material. Every FRAM ADBV I've seen had witness marks from the holes...an intelligent filter manufacturer would make the ADBV seal around the OD of the holes feed holes in the top plate...like mobil 1. Rumor has it, Fram is moving towards silicone ADBVs in ALL of their filters...but it makes no difference if they don't seal against the appropriate section of the top/tapping plate. Its not hard to design an oil filter that works right...it just takes thought.
 
^^^ If you want messed up ADBVs, just look at the many photos posted here of Purolators with big cuts in the ADBV from the base plate holes. No real evidence of any Frams having damaged ADBVs.
 
I have cut open every Fram I have run, I have never seen so much as a scratch on one of their ADBVs.

I'm gonna need to see some pictures to buy that.

OP has 2 consecutive failures of 2 different brand filters on 2 different Toyota V6 engines, I'm assuming they take the same filter Part #, but still the odds of that seem pretty long.

Got to be more to it IMO.
 
To be fair, the Fram filter on the 3.4L was at the end of it's life...its an economy priced filter designed around 3000 miles OCIs....and it worked fine until about the 4000 miles mark.

My issue with the Pentius is that the material has a memory to it and fails to seal immediately after flow stops.

The common element with both of these engines is that the filters sit upside down, so the the ADBV is kind of a critical feature..especially on the 4.0 where the filter sits upside down at the top of the engine.
 
Was the Denso the new black one? The old blue ones had an excellent sealing adbv, with the 1/8' compression on the sealing edge. The other thing that may cause the start up knocking is engine wear, restrictive media(maybe old and hardened cellulose) and if the bypass valve isn't fast acting or large enough. I had the same concerns on a Camry v6 2002. The OE filter worked right, and it isn't known if the adbv is nitrile or silicone.
 
Originally Posted By: goodtimes
Was the Denso the new black one? The old blue ones had an excellent sealing adbv, with the 1/8' compression on the sealing edge. The other thing that may cause the start up knocking is engine wear, restrictive media(maybe old and hardened cellulose) and if the bypass valve isn't fast acting or large enough. I had the same concerns on a Camry v6 2002. The OE filter worked right, and it isn't known if the adbv is nitrile or silicone.


Yes, the new black one.

I didn't even use the Denso, just bought it for comparison. Like I said..if the filter had not been bone dry when I unscrewed it, I would have never suspected a filter related problem.
 
Originally Posted By: DuckRyder
I have cut open every Fram I have run, I have never seen so much as a scratch on one of their ADBVs.

I'm gonna need to see some pictures to buy that.

OP has 2 consecutive failures of 2 different brand filters on 2 different Toyota V6 engines, I'm assuming they take the same filter Part #, but still the odds of that seem pretty long.

Got to be more to it IMO.


Here's a silicone fram ADBV that came out of a gold fram filter after 7500 on 3.4L GM minivan last week.

 
V6 toyota filter pics

Here's the pentius. The ADBV has been sitting there for about a minute, you can see how its still distorted



Pentius (white) and Denso (black)



M1 and OE



Pentius and Denso



M1 and OE




I'm not sure how the denso seals at all, but somehow it does..sorta. It lost almost 1/5 of its oil during my week long drain test.
 
Nitrile ADBVs are inconsistent-I've had Quaker State (jobber level Puro) filters lose ADBV function in under 3K, but I've not had an issue with an Ultra yet-and the last one went 19,600 miles & still held oil, could have gone even further.
filter.jpg

Haven't seen witness marks or cuts yet.
 
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For clarity, the red fram ADBV I posted above is NOT out of the toyota 3.4L engine I mentioned earlier...it's out of my neighbor's GM minivan. The toyota 3.4L fram filter was a cheapo orange fram that used the nitrile ADBV, but showed the same witness marks from the holes.
 
Can you tell if the Denso's ADBV is silicone or nitrile? The color change from their older filters suggests they're nitrile, but their website (which has been updated to show the new generation filters) says they're still silicone.
 
So for the Toyota we are talking about PH3614 and equivalents...?

For the GM minivan that should be PH3387A / PF47 equivalents.

Honestly, I don't really like the looks of any of those except the M1, though the Pentius is particularly egregious..
 
Originally Posted By: penataquit
Can you tell if the Denso's ADBV is silicone or nitrile? The color change from their older filters suggests they're nitrile, but their website (which has been updated to show the new generation filters) says they're still silicone.


Hard to tell...silicone comes in black too. I could try to tear it...silicone generally tears differently. Maybe tomorrow.
 
Originally Posted By: DuckRyder
So for the Toyota we are talking about PH3614 and equivalents...?

For the GM minivan that should be PH3387A / PF47 equivalents.

Honestly, I don't really like the looks of any of those except the M1, though the Pentius is particularly egregious..


Yes, Yes, agreed, but the OE toyota seams to be designed so that it functions well.
 
Originally Posted By: lbhsbz
Originally Posted By: penataquit
Can you tell if the Denso's ADBV is silicone or nitrile? The color change from their older filters suggests they're nitrile, but their website (which has been updated to show the new generation filters) says they're still silicone.


Hard to tell...silicone comes in black too. I could try to tear it...silicone generally tears differently. Maybe tomorrow.


Give it the freezer test. Silicone ADBV will much more flexible than nitrile after being in the freezer.
 
HMMM...

I had an XG3600 that had some witness marks on it after about 10,000 miles, that I did not notice at the time...

XG3600d.jpg


All of the others look OK, I've only cut that one 3600, but have another due to come off and will pay particular attention to it.
 
Originally Posted By: lbhsbz
I hesitate to bash Fram, but I will....they fail to understand critical elements. Fram ADBV sit flat over the holes in the top plate....the holes are punched, and not honed or made on plane with the rest of the the top plate material. Every FRAM ADBV I've seen had witness marks from the holes...an intelligent filter manufacturer would make the ADBV seal around the OD of the holes feed holes in the top plate...like mobil

Dude, really? Lack of intelligence? You are cracking me up. ADBV are tested every single day to SAE and ISO test standards and we pass, every single time. It makes zero difference if there are "witness marks" as long as the valve closes and does not leak. Maybe you should be a filter designer? Sorry for the attitude but you are way off base here.


1. Rumor has it, Fram is moving towards silicone ADBVs in ALL of their filters...but it makes no difference if they don't seal against the appropriate section of the top/tapping plate. Its not hard to design an oil filter that works right...it just takes thought.


See above. You have no idea what you are talking about. If our valves leaked, you would have a start up rattle every single time you start the car. We sell 325 million filters a year, the rattling would be so loud it would be heard around the world. And eventually (within the next 3 years or so) all decent quality filters will migrate to silicone adbv's due to longer OCI's.
 
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