I did not see the oil filter post on this forum till just a minute ago. I had put up a post on my board this morning about Mack trucks now sponsoring fram filters as OEM (see link below).Right to my point. I am a firm believer in oil quality test results. I won't even consider buying a used engine of any kind unless I know who serived and what they used or until I get an oil analysis done on it. The oil test does not necessarily mean the engine is good but will usually tell you a lot about the conditions inside. I have a private facility that does analysis for me through a business contact I have. I send them samples from fleet vehicles as well as my own trucks once per year or if I suspect a problem. Over the last 9 or so years they have been doing this for me, they have been right every time. When the sample shows signs of a problem, it has come true. Oil samples won't tell you everything or prevent a major failure but they can show abnormal wear and suggest possible problems. When it comes to used equipment, I'll be more than glad to spend the 40 bucks for the oil testing before buying a piece of crap. Of course, it did not save me a penny when I bought a 4 cylinder detroit powered hydraulic unit and had the crank snap a few days later. Bad crank but it did not cause bearing wear which would have shown in the oil sample. It did however save me a on buying a Cummins powered dump truck that looked good. Clean oil, clean engine, nice body. I ran the engine for 30 minutes to get the oil up to temp and pulled the sample from the dip stick tube with a vacuum pump. Sample showed a lot of suspended bearing material yet the oil & filter had just been changed a few days prior to the sample being taken. I passed on the purchase and the truck was sold to someone else a couple weeks later who ended up doing a re-build on it a few weeks after buying it. You can read my post to get my experience with fram filters. Overall, one cannot judge a filter or oil by life span of an engine in years or miles. The only true determination of oil and filters is through analysis in an independent lab. Personally, I use almost all baldwin filters in everything from the little 4 cyl in the woman's corsical to the big detroits at the mine. The oil varies a bit. I was using shell rotella in all the diesels until I switched to a local oil blenders own brand. Very similar with a few additives not found in the rotella that I like. Price was not even considered in this choice because I'm actually paying around $.05 more per gallon for the local blend than I was for the rotella from the same guy. I buy in bulk, normally 55 gallon drums. Before the oil leave the barrel, it gets filtered to 10 microns after passing through the barrel pump. I don't trust any packaged oil after seeing the sludge left in the bottom of a barrel of texaco havoline 15w40 many years ago. It all gets filtered before it goes in the engine no matter what brand or type it is, especially hydraulic oils. I used to run only valvoline 5w30 in my '91 f-150 w/ the 300 6 cyl. When I switched to the local blender, I also started using their 5w40 gasoline oil in all my equipment including the Onan twin cylinder air cooled. I run this oil year round combined with baldwin filters and every oil sample to date has come back clean. I know people that have run cars with little 4 cylinders, never changed the oil or filters and never added any unless the light came on yet still got over 100k on them before a blow out. I've also seen engines let loose after only 60K with oil and filter changes done regularly at 3k so it does not prove a thing as to miles or hours. Had samples been done, I'm sure they would have shown problems long before they caused a major oil / filter related problem. Personally, I don't care if something is OEM or not, I go with what I know works. I get something new, first thing I do is drain all the fluids and replace them with ones I know are good, same with the filters.
| 
