[no subject]

Several years ago  an auto restoration magazine, "Skinned Knuckles"
(December, 1987), investigated spin-on oil filters. They cut them apart t=
o
see what was inside. They found significant and serious differences among=

brands. Not only were some of internal parts questionable and the assembl=
y
work poor, they even found manufacturing debris. Generally, they consider=
ed
Fram to be one of the poorer filters. Among other problems they found wit=
h
Fram was the filter media  poorly attached, some internal components were=

low quality, and the assembly was sloppy. This suggested that the Fram
filters they checked might not hold up well. However, the article noted
that in February of that year, "Consumer Reports" magazine tests of
filtering efficiency and resistance to plugging rated Fram number one.

I know of a specific Fram failure on an older  Alfa Spider, where the
cartridge-style element disintegrated. It looked like one would expect
based on the "Skinned Knuckles" article's comments about the filtering
element of a spin-on filter.

After knowing the above, I started cutting apart my used oil filters. The=
re
certainly are differences inside. =


In fairness to Fram, the magazine test was done nearly a dozen years ago,=

and they may have changed substantially since then or maybe the problems =
SK
found were not really functionally relevant. But I will still use the
filters with the features I think represent quality.

Paul Rollins
Vancouver, WA

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