I bought a 2012 Mazda 3 last week, and the first thing I want to do is replace the old crappy oil and filter.
I have a 2.0L engine, not skyactiv. The filter that WAS on the vehicle when I bought it is a Pentius Ultraflow Blue PLG6607. It's much smaller than the FRAM PH3614 that I got from Autozone.
When I look up the part number on Oreilly, Autozone, and even the FRAM website it says if I have 'VIN G' (The 8th letter of my VIN is G) then I use the 3614. The 6607 is listed for if my VIN is 7 or 8.
Since it had the 6607 on already, should I continue to use the 6607 model? Or should I use the 3614 model that FRAM, Oreilly, AZ, and the other websites claim I should?
>first thing I want to do is replace the old crappy oil and filter.
Filter quality changes with time. Lots of filter companies now get their components from China. In some cases, the companies that claim to be manufacturing the filters in the USA or Europe are doing so with chinese components. It is the country of assembly that can also specify the "Made In Germany" or "Made in USA" label. But the parts and entire subassembly was made in china and all they did was put it in the can and seal the can.
Fram was good long ago. Then it had a period of mediocrity. Then it became good again. Then it had a period of real badness in the 2000's and tried hard to reform around 2010 onwards.
In my opinion, Fram is a reasonable filter once again even though they have filters made from chinese parts. The chinese parts still vary in quality for the SAME FILTER model. Chinese companies have a habit of bait and switch or even fradulent substitution once they think you are no longer inspecting.
As expected, the same filter model number put together in the USA may be quite different from the filter made in china although it is the same filter model. That is also a reason why China strongly fought for and maintains "Most Favored Nation" trading status as it allows them to directly input into the distribution system. Thus, the customers get sent the china items while the fram HQ gets a different (what it was supposed to be) filter to test.
I use Fram ToughGuard. The car is 2016 new, so I was taking advantage of the normal desire to get early oil changes in case there is any "new engine debris". It was also to swap out the factory synthetic blend to go to full synthetic. First swap at 500 miles went to Fram ExtraGuard. Next swap at 1500 miles went to Fram ToughGuard (current).
Kayden Foster
I only use mazda filters. Same price as most other. Makes be feel better knowing i used oem parts.
Chase Bailey
Best filter on the market apparently, according to an independent garage study. Fram is fucking trash.
Jace Peterson
wix/napa gold is pretty good too.
Colton Lewis
>Makes be feel better knowing i used oem parts. OEM parts have varying makers. They change all the time too.
Just recently, UCI declared bankruptcy as the chinese competition killed it. UCI owns various automotive parts companies that you may have grown up with. Prestone, Champion Labs, etcetera. Their companies made parts that were then relabeled for NAPA, Motorcraft, GM, etc. Anyways,
You have to be careful about chinese companies. They will substitute or change the manufacturing process on you without telling you as part of their process of making money. And if you go out of business due to that, they can even buy up your name, patents, or distribution network for pennies on the dollar.
China has been getting into motor oil exporting too. So eventually, you might see all those USA brand names buying the oil from china instead of manufacturing it due to price war competition.
Less than 70% of chinese oils tested passed the cold temperature "W" rating that they were labelled as. But...the European labels were better, but not hugely so in the 10W and 15W ranges. US was over 95% compliant.
The small independent oil/filter change service centers will probably use the lower priced oils and filters.
Ayden Cook
>fram filter ew
Nolan Evans
>China has been getting into motor oil exporting too. It would be hard to trust chinese oil. Heck, they might even bleach dark oil a lighter color if that was cheap enough to do. The chinese companies even cooked food with used discarded oil and sold that canned food as imports to the usa. It even got caught by the FDA eventually (after like 15 years of sellling) and banned.
Jack Walker
Are you retarded?
Ethan Ortiz
no purolater is retard fram is better
Lucas Miller
Wix/Napa Gold or nothing.
Grayson Roberts
>not buying oem
Juan Thompson
OEM for my car is made by FRAM, so no thanks.
Owen Reed
>Mazda filters I buy the rx-8 filter for my Subaru outback. $10 which is relatively cheap and it's a Tokyo roki reskin. Really really good filter.
Chase Howard
>no purolater is retard >fram is better
Purolator did have a lot of internal filter media tears in their filters in recent years. You wouldn't know it unless you saved the filter from the oil change AND opened up the metal can. Some of the dedicated people in various different car forums as well as the BITOG have opened up purolators and frequently found tears. Purolator seems to be using chinese suppliers and the new media was too "brittle".
It's way too frequent percentage wise because it can be considered the filters picked to be examined are from a random pool of filters. Thus the hit rate for problems is actually quite high. Purolator has been keeping quiet and also ignoring filter users with complaints. Fram has been addressing any complaints and even asks people who have certain types of filter problems to send them in (they provide shipping). In some cases where there is a genuine problem discovered with the raw material supplier (media and internals from China) then some users have gotten not just a refund but also a free case of filters.
Fram ultra filters have a wire mesh forming the pleats, so pressure pulses causing a hole is pretty tough. If you use an "ECO" type car, there may be a lot of oil pulses because the engines start and stop a lot and some of the starts are due to the driver already flooring the pedal, so the pulse may be especially large.
In my opinion, I think Fram is trying to make sure product performance problems are fixed. The problem is that chinese suppliers are unreliable and will substitute and change things for unethical profit.
Logan Robinson
OEM has a standard requirement for warranty. If the oil filter made by Fram fails and causes a warranty claim you bet your ass the vehicle manufacturer will sue Fram.
Robert Bell
What car is it?
Jayden Myers
I'll bet money they will not sue Fram.
Jeremiah Garcia
Contrary to your contrary attitude, the first things companies do is not sue each other. They already have pre-arranged methods to deal with product failures. Your requirement of perfection or sue is also unworkable in the real world between companies that deal with large statistical numbers.
The problem is that China is the actual manufacturer of filter parts. Even the made in usa filters get their parts from china and then simply put the chinese filter inside the can and call that "made in usa" when it really wasn't. They should have the label "just the can was crimped shut in the usa" because even the box was printed in china.
Jaxon James
>Less than 70% of chinese oils tested passed the cold temperature "W" rating that they were labelled as.
Correction, 18% of chinese oils fail. For the 5W-XX type oils, both Europe and the USA have 95% of the oil meet the claim on the label that it met the SAE standards listed. The 5% that didn't were probably knock-off oils imported into the market. For china, in their 5X-XX oil market, only 18% of the oils available didn't meet the labeled SAE requirement. Of note is that the oil testing didn't break out the made-in-china oils, but also included major oil brands familiar to european and usa consumers. Assuming peformance of major brands such as pennzoil or mobil 1 are similar all across the planet, that implies that the chinese-sourced oils make up the vast majority of the 18% of failures. That doesn't mean that more than 18% of all chinese brands fail because it is technically possible that almost all of that 18% failure comes from just one brand. But since there is no data breakout by brandname, we cannot tell and the institute is keeping quiet on which brands are at fault. Certainly they must know as they conducted the tests. But there are probably public and legal considerations on why they do not release more specific info on chinese brand failures.
Sebastian Flores
this is a myth i use them on all my cars never had a problem
William Jackson
Just because they haven't caused an outright failure doesn't mean they aren't comparatively low quality compared to other manufacturers. If I can get a filter that is much better quality for the same price then why wouldn't I?
Personally I run wix (napa gold) as they're the most available for the cheapest price. However there are several other good brands for similar price such as purolator, tokyo roki, etc etc.
Adam Bennett
Fwiw apparently subaru for their newest model has been going back to supplying the "black filters" made by tokyo roki for their newest models of wrx/sti. Or so I've heard from the community, both the local dealerships are trash so I have never went in to check for myself.
Charles Diaz
I will probably switch to using Fram Ultra synthetic filters in the future because they have a protective metal mesh that stops tearing, physical deformation, or blowthrough due to pressure pulses.
Those pressure pulses doomed Purolators which have a lot of ongoing tear complaints. Purolator keeps silent on them and others in forums complained about getting the silent treatment from purolator. Ignore the complaints and they go away, the release a press release about how great they are and new and improved (packaging change but same chinese supplier).
Connor Garcia
>First thing I want to do it replace crappy old filter >Replaces with FRAM, a crappy filter >Probably picked shitty oil too >So retarded he can't figure out the correct filter for his car
Easton Mitchell
Filter reputations change as they change methods or suppliers. Fram got burned from bad chinese suppliers before and they seem to be doing a reasonable job at quality control. The problem has multiple tentacles though. The chinese suppliers seem to be occasionally substituting lower quality materials in order to make more profit. Another issue chinese factories have is internal corruption. For example, a material supplier to the factory itself may directly negotiate with a key supervisor at one point in the production process. In return for overlooking the material change, some of the profit will be directly given to that supervisor. Thus, not even the chinese factory manager/owner knows that his own factory is subverted. These are not fake stories. It happened to my employer who had certain items made in China due to price. The usa companies just couldn't compete and so went out of business because that is capitalism and not liberalism which protects non performing companies.
Adam Nguyen
>Wix/Napa Gold or nothing.
Not every NAPA filter is made by one supplier. Some NAPA filters were made by Fram.
