I've been seeing a LOT of these "made in China" filters coming out of Mini Coopers lately. Cars equipped with N12, N14, N16 and N18 engines. I'm assuming these are coming from quickie lube joints because cheap.
Every time I pull one out, the remaining oil in the filter housing and filter cartridge cap are FILLED with metal particles. Literally looks like someone threw a handful of glitter in the oil. It makes me cringe. I never see that when removing an OEM purflux filter.
Upon closer inspection I found the China filters are roughly 1mm shorter than the OEM. I'm thinking they're allowing oil to bypass them due to the fact that they're short. The media looks decent enough, and I never see them torn.
I cannot find any branding on the filters. Even trying to look up the numbers on the filters yields no results. My best guess is Ecoguard X5830.
One review on Amazon complained that the drain plug washer provided with the Ecoguard X5830 is just a copper washer, instead of the nice silicon impregnated folded crush washer you get with OEM or other high quality filters. And it seems like that's what I see in conjunction with each and every one of these [censored] tastic filters.
Sorry for the weak pics, but I only have my phone to work with.
The China filter:
China on the left, OEM filters on the right. You can see that it's shorter.
I tried REALLY hard to get good pics with the glitter in the oil, this is the best I could do with my phone. Turned up the brightness with editing software so it stands out a little better... still doesn't do it justice. This is the inside of the cartridge cap. You can see the particles in the oil near the edge of the cap.
I know there's not many Mini owners on bitog, but I'm not on any Mini forum, (because I don't own one) and even though I'm not particularly a fan of Mini vehicles, this kind of thing really irks me, and I had to share. DON'T BUY CHEAP FILTERS!!1
Every time I pull one out, the remaining oil in the filter housing and filter cartridge cap are FILLED with metal particles. Literally looks like someone threw a handful of glitter in the oil. It makes me cringe. I never see that when removing an OEM purflux filter.
Upon closer inspection I found the China filters are roughly 1mm shorter than the OEM. I'm thinking they're allowing oil to bypass them due to the fact that they're short. The media looks decent enough, and I never see them torn.
I cannot find any branding on the filters. Even trying to look up the numbers on the filters yields no results. My best guess is Ecoguard X5830.
One review on Amazon complained that the drain plug washer provided with the Ecoguard X5830 is just a copper washer, instead of the nice silicon impregnated folded crush washer you get with OEM or other high quality filters. And it seems like that's what I see in conjunction with each and every one of these [censored] tastic filters.
Sorry for the weak pics, but I only have my phone to work with.
The China filter:
China on the left, OEM filters on the right. You can see that it's shorter.
I tried REALLY hard to get good pics with the glitter in the oil, this is the best I could do with my phone. Turned up the brightness with editing software so it stands out a little better... still doesn't do it justice. This is the inside of the cartridge cap. You can see the particles in the oil near the edge of the cap.
I know there's not many Mini owners on bitog, but I'm not on any Mini forum, (because I don't own one) and even though I'm not particularly a fan of Mini vehicles, this kind of thing really irks me, and I had to share. DON'T BUY CHEAP FILTERS!!1