Opinions on going 21k miles on a Fram Ultra

[UncleDave]

Nope. If you are going to bother taking it off at all then replace it.

Even starting with a clean engine your engine creates its own gunk, and you dont really know the rate of "gunk production" and even if you do its not going to be completely consistent and as an engine ages - gets worse.

In my 3MZfe at 15K the filter dome has visible gunk in it that the pleats didnt absorb and hold that floated back into suspension.

The filter only holds XX amount of dirt, and even if the media stays viable and the filter intact for 21 you aren't able to tell how plugged the filter is or how often you get a bypass scenario which depending on the filter orientation could cause that very same gunk to get sucked right into the engine.

Unless its a gross producer you can't tell by looking at pleats or has visible carbon or sludge chunks in it.

Net net - I just replace it at the interval on the box and dont risk my engine on stretching out a 8 dollar filter.

...as always thats merely my own opinion.

UD

 

[CR94]

Have you dissected filters from that engine after shorter distances (say 2x7000=14000 miles). If so, and if there was very little "dirt" in the media then, there's no logical reason not to up your interval by 50%.

I used to regularly run basic Purolators around 18,000 miles with no significant problems. However, that was before their tearing issues began.

 

[ARCOgraphite]

Now why cant I get 5K miles without bearing knock? I bet the Toyota canister has 3x the filter area of a spin on Nissan. Don't forget oil gumming with ethanol fuel. That's stop you short in your tracks. ILSAC is supposed to deal with this hidden disaster - I don't know who well. Read the API SM/ILSAC GF5 committee.

 

[bullwinkle]

I'd be nervous running a CARTRIDGE Ultra that far-there have been a few failures reported here. Now a spin-on, I've done 19,600 miles on an Ultra myself, it would have had no trouble making 21K.

 

[supton]

Originally Posted By: ARCOgraphite
Now why cant I get 5K miles without bearing knock?


You sure it's a bearing knock in the engine? I've seen this before, and it's usually traced to loose nut located in the vicinity of the steering wheel.

 

[JHZR2]

Two years and 16k miles has been fine and the norm going back on vehicles Ive owned, to at least 2003 running cartridges.

15k miles has been the norm for vehicles we own going back to 1994 at least, running spin-on.

Given what we know about the Fram Ultra quality, I wouldn't be concerned too much, unless the 21k was over a very long time or had some other abnormal conditions.

 

[jdavis]

Few updates for this thread everyone -

21k would take me roughly 8 months of time for those wondering, I do mostly highway and 40+ minute trips.

As far as tightening goes, I've had 2 other canister Toyota's, a 2012 Camry and a 2008 Tundra, both had plastic canisters and metal housings. This Rav4 has a metal canister and metal housing, you don't really barely tighten it, it's either tight or not it seems..

 

[fdcg27]

There are some threads here that show the cartridge type Ultras not holding up as well as the spin-ons.
I'd say that two intervals would probably be okay but I don't know that I'd try three.
OTOH, worse case scenario, the filter tears and you have almost nothing circulating that the filter would have caught anyway.
Carry this to its logical conclusion and just run an empty housing. No oil filter ever needing changing again.
You might knock 5 or 10K off the life of that Toyota, but the car in which it's installed will still be rusty crusher bait in the Northeast long before the engine dies.
There was life before oil filters and engines did pretty well without them with only the primitive motor oils of the day, like through the early sixties, when an oil filter was still optional equipment on some cars and full flow oil filters were in their infancy.
And, no main bearing clearances weren't too much different from those found today although these old engines did have much lower bearing loads since they had much lower specific outputs and they weren't installed before drive trains that made them make lots of torque at low revs.
Just a crazy thought from me.

 

[Macgyver452]

Take one for the team and run an Ultra to 20k or 25k. We all want to see how it holds up!

 

[Polly_3SFE]

You are not alone. My Rav4 has the same style metal canister I'm guessing. I tighten it down all the way, doesn't feel like much torque at all, hand tight essentially maybe a little more. After 5K miles, I go to take it off and it's completely stuck on. I too need to use a breaker bar with the oil filter socket. I read on the ToyotaNation forum that this occurs regularly and it is because it is two different types of metal meeting.

That being said, I will still be changing my filter every time. Cheap insurance, as they say.

 

[Bluestream]

Originally Posted By: bioburner
What does the car manufacture say?

Your willing to toast a 5k engine for the cost of a Starbucks coffee or 2 or handful of snickers bars?
The filter efficiency will increase with use...No big deal.

 

[supton]

I wonder... if the metal housing is getting stuck, maybe a homemade gasket is called for. Something to make a bit of "give" between the canister and the housing that it bottoms against. IIRC, at the end of the threads the canister does a 90 degree turn and gives a large flat "mating" surface" before transitioning again and then eventually forming the large socket area. I wonder if a small gasket, a bit larger ID than the large o-ring used on the canister, would do well here. Just a thought.

Too bad Toyota couldn't have just cast a 3/8 drive, or better, a 24mm drive into the housing. That'd have made life easier. [24mm being the same size they use in several spots for drain plugs.]