I think if one is going to buy so called "Premium" oil filters, one should just suck it up and get a bypass oil filter set up like OilGuard at app $150. There is no way a premium filter can match the lower micron filtering capability and higher capacity(plus 1 qt) of the bypass system.
I, myself am using between 15,000 and 20,000 mile oil and filter changes with the 2 dollar filter and Mobil One synthetic products. This would put the OCI's (according to the oem of Oil guard) at 2x or in my case 30,000 and 40,000 between OCI's.
A documentation of the math might be a tad tedious for this thread, so here are some numbers.
OCI's of 3k,5k,7.5k,10k,15k,20k,30k,40k,
2-4 dollars for the commodity oil filter
5-7 dollars for normal oil filters,
Premuium oil filters like Mobil One, 7-10. Synthetic Mobil One oils 4 dollars.
ExxonMobil Superflo at 1.
OilGuard filter element 11.
Service life of 250,000 miles for the vehicle.
10,000 mile OCIs with either commodity or normal filters with conventional Exxon Superflo is the cheapest. (at between 75-175)The only problem is 10k on conventional might be pushing it and might require a few UOA's to dial in.
My operative behavior: $2. oil filters, 15,000 to 20,000 mile OCI's, 4 qts synthetic oil = %234./$306. = pretty low cost per mile lubricated over 250,000 miles, .000936 cents/.001224 cents.
(cheapest of all the oil change intervals oil and filter combinations) Have fun doing the math.
[ January 04, 2005, 12:56 PM: Message edited by: ruking77 ]