What Oil Filter Brand to Choose?

E

extropic

H-M Supporter - Diamond Member
H-M Lifetime Diamond Member
I haven't owned a gas burner in years, but I just bought a used 2014 Honda Odyssey LX.
I want to do the first oil change which leads me to wonder if any filter brands are better than others these days.
I would appreciate comments from regular H-M contributors above random internet crap.
What do you use , and been happy with, on your tight tolerance gas burner?
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It does matter hugely. Tests have been done and several “name” brands like Fram were garbage. One of the last tests I saw quite a while back put Wix really high and Napa I think bought them.
 
Fram is now junk - used to be decent, saw one review where the inside of the can was rusted, gaskets were paper, and the filter element was minimal compared to other brands. Used them for years , probably too long. Napa Gold used to be Wix, they’ve changed vendors, but still supposed to be good - I switched to them and will stay. Wix changed hands, but probably ok so far. Donaldson and Fleetguard are excellent, but marketed more for industrial diesels than gas or regular automotive. K&N marketed for performance, but their air filters are not that good - plus the oil in the filters coats the hot wires in MAF sensors and makes them read wrong, stick with a dry filter. Not sure about oil filters, but if marketing doesn’t filter air, it doesn’t filter oil either, probably. At least, for Toyota, the OEM filters are very competitive with aftermarket (like within a buck), so I’ll keep going that way. Not sure how Honda stacks with that, but I would check. Whatever the brand, they usually have a premium line that’s better than the regular. Especially for current extended change intervals, premium is preferred. The hard part for us consumers is that we have no data and things change we don’t know about. I do know that the difference between a new engine and a worn out engine is about a teaspoon of metal, oil is cheaper than metal, and good filters cost a few dollars more than cheap ones.
 
Having worked for the largest Automotive manufacturing company in the world (AC Spark Plug) and personally managed the Injection fuel filter business I know a little about filters.

To begin with every product ever made be it automotive or toilet paper has a production drawing and material specifications. At one time you could be fairly confident that if a product had a companys name on it then it was manufactured by said company. However within the last 30 years things have changed. Products are managed by what is called "Product Managers" the product manager gets to determine who makes their product's. So just because it says AC or AC Delco does not mean it was produced by the parent company. The product manager has the products quoted by various producers. And yes they are quoted to the prints and material specs. So you may be buying a Fram filter with an AC Delco lable on it and painted blue. I know this because I used to produce filters for Fram and package them in the Orange Fram box with the Orange Fram lable on it.
My title for several years was "Product Manager" Even Plant managers feared me because I had the power to pull products out of their plant and send to some other source . I know this for a fact....

Now that I have described the process you don't know what filter you are actually buying. Since the bankrupcy of GM and Delphi many of the brand names have been sourced to companies like Bosh ,Monroe,Denso,Tenaco and many others. The products will still have the brand names attached to them and the same color and such but the brand name means nothing.

If that doesn't convince you Craftsman brand still exist. But is owned by a big conglomorate who also owns many other tool brand names. Brand names are a currency themselves. Bought and sold.

I really feel sorry for the members of the Snap-On cult. Stanley tool had a plant here a few years back. They made tools for Proto,Craftsman,Stanley,and others including Snap-On. All in the same factory by the same people using the same processes. I have some of the tools that came out of the plant that were given to me by family members and friends who worked there. My neighbor also was a supervisor in the plant.

So don't ask me which filter is the best. I still use AC oil filters but I do not know who made them.
 
I’ve always used Purolator filters for screw ons and Mann for cartridges. The Purolators are what we used in our Honda Pilots. The nice thing about Honda is all the engines use the same filter, so when we needed a new Pilot, the filters for the old one still fit.
 
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