In discussions about where an oil filter is made, who makes it, etc., its dizzying. Companies are bought and sold every day it seems. We all can understand that if it costs $2 per oil filter to make it here in a free & democratic 1st-world country like the U.S., and it costs $1 per oil filter to make it in poor 3rd world countries, then a company CEO has an easy decision for profitability: hello cesspool countries.
As for quality, if you control it, its very possible and likely that a Mexican plant, for example, can have high quality, so forget that part. So maybe what matters is which company cares about its reputation and quality control. Commodity fly-by-night suppliers in China do not, while Fram, Wix, etc. do care, so it probably doesn't matter where its made for quality anyway, only who is staking their reputation on it.
Fixing the Motorking quotes below for clarity:
Originally Posted By: Gokhan
Currently Fram/Champion and Wix/Purolator/Mann+Hummel seem to be the only two major oil-filter manufacturers in the USA, making aftermarket, OEM, and third-party-branded oil filters.
Originally Posted By: Motorking
Mann is a German company and owner of Purolator and WIX, making them German companies as well.
Originally Posted By: Gokhan
Are there any other major USA oil-filter manufacturers?
Originally Posted By: Motorking
Donaldson, Champion Labs, Baldwin
Originally Posted By: Gokhan
Also, given that there are only two consolidated manufacturers now, quality of the USA oil filters seem to have increased and become similar across different brands. High-grade, synthetic-media USA oil filters like Mobil 1 EP, Fram Ultra, Wix XP, Purolator Boss seem to be of higher quality than Japanese OEM oil filters that are made in Thailand etc., which seem to be more similar to low-grade, non-synthetic-media USA oil filters.
Originally Posted By: Motorking
The Purolator Boss and WIX XP are not even in the same ballpark as FRAM Ultra in efficiecny, both are very low though they do have good capacity. The Mobil EP filter IS NOT a synthetic media filter, it is a cellulose/syn blend similar to FRAM TG.