Matt Whiting said:
Looks don't filter oil. I haven't seen a lot of test data recently, but
the tests I've seen in the past didn't place Fram in a very good light
performance-wise.
Matt
True, looks don't filter oil, but the sites that I've been able to find that
"tested / compared" various oil filters did rely solely on looking at the
construction of the different filters. None of them did any testing of the
filter's ability to filter oil. They mention things like cardboard end caps.
Also they found bad anti-drainback valve construction, crappy can
construction, and bad bypass valve construction. Also, just looking at the
pictures, you can see that the filter media looks realy bad. This filter has
none of the items mentioned. All of the functionality other than the actual
filtering of the oil is provided by the parts that Hyundai originally
provided with the vehicle, and stay with it regardless of what brand of
filter is used.
Given that one of the trademark signs of the crappy Fram filters is the
cardboard end caps - and these don't have them - it might be reasonable to
conclude that these particular filters are made someplace other than the
factory that makes the other Fram filters. As we know, Hyundai issued that
TSB warning about problems with "certain" aftermarket filters causing oil
pressure issues. Given the information about the poor quality construction
of the can type filters that's only visible after destructive disassembly,
it's obvious why those problems exist.
The only real question about these filters is whether the element holds up
for an oil change cycle. That will be easy to determine.
If you know of sites that have done other than visual testing that I haven't
been able to find, I'd be interested in looking at their data.