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Stock XJ Cherokee Tech. All XJ Non-modified/stock questions go hereXJ (84-01)
All OEM related XJ specific tech. Examples, no start, general maintenance or anything that's stock.
My info comes from actual experience of tearing down 1000s of engines that had failures and having to figure out why they failed. Again, this is being posted on the internet so its probably not true.
Still looking for those 200,000 images of engines blown to smithereens with Big Orange hanging off 'em.
OK I'll make it easier. Show me 2,000 blown engines. That's a failure rate of 0.000001%.
However, given that you have a slightly better chance of being struck by lightning (0.0000014%) you would be dead from lightning strike before your engine blows up.
You will never see 200,000 pictures of blown up engines with a Fram on them. You know why? Cause most people dont know engines good enough to be able to figure out why it blew up or even bother to look into why it blew up. Most people go, ohh, it spun a bearing, oil pump must have gone out. In reality, its very rare for an oil pump to randomly go out. So what the only thing between the bearings and the oil pump? The oil filter.
Now here is something that has yet to be brought up, oil filter flow rate. Sure any oil filter company can get a filter to filter down to 20 microns. Thats the easy part. Getting the filter to actually flow at the same time is the hard part. So what happens when you have an oil pump that can do 8 gpm yet your oil filter can only flow 3 gpm? Thats called a restriction. You can have 80 psi coming in yet only 40 psi going out. Once particles start getting stuck in the oil filter, it only slows the flow down even more. It will get to the point when the filter cant flow enough to support the demand of the engine. This is when the filter crushes in on itself and all flow stops.
The difference between a cheap filter and a good one is the actual amount of filter media. A good filter will have have nearly twice the amount of filter media in it. That means it can hold twice the amount of particles before slowing the flow down. Also having twice the surface area, it means it can flow twice as much. This is all basic math so I hope im not losing you. When you cut a Fram apart and spread the media out, its going to be about 10" long. When you cut a Wix open, they are about 20" long. Again, surface area, it means more then anything.
Just in case you would like to see a picture of what I am talking about, Notice that the 2 Fram filters have about half as many ridges as most of the other ones. That means less surface area, less area to collect particles and less area to flow oil through. Now if you would like to keep ranting and raving about Fram filters, feel free to cause it makes no difference to me.
It stands to reason that a Wix filter rated for 3750-10,000 miles would have to have more something to be able to perform effectively over its life over the orange filter rated at 3750 - 5000 miles. Big orange only needs to have enough filter surface area to accomplish its intended purpose. And after 75 years I have no doubt that Fram has a pretty good idea what that is for every application and has built in a more than adequate buffer.
BUT if you want to argue that people who read on the internet that they can go 7500 to 15,000 miles between oil changes and didn't read on the box that Big Orange is only good for 5000, well then that's kinda their fault if their engine explodes.
It stands to reason that a Wix filter rated for 3750-10,000 miles would have to have more something to be able to perform effectively over its life over the orange filter rated at 3750 - 5000 miles. Big orange only needs to have enough filter surface area to accomplish its intended purpose. And after 75 years I have no doubt that Fram has a pretty good idea what that is for every application and has built in a more than adequate buffer.
Where are your comments about flow rates? Kind of an important thing.
So lets just assume that at 5000 miles, the Fram is 75% contaminated. It can only flow 25% at that point. On a filter that really cant keep up in flow when new, what do you think its going to do when its 75% clogged?
A Wix at 5000 miles will only be 25% contaminated still leaving 75% of the flow there.
Why would you want a filter that just barely can get by over one that still can last longer?
You ever hear people say that there oil psi went up after an oil change? Its not cause of the fresh oil, its cause of the fresh filter.
And lastly, Fram was a good filter company for 70 years. About 5 years ago they went downhill when they went to off shore manufacturing. $ making over quality at that point.
To each their own - do what you wish with your own Jeep, but I'll never use a Fram.
I had oil pressure wonkiness a while back, turned out the Fram filter was the culprit and going to the WIX made the engine run noticeably smoother.
When a former Jeep dealership head mechanic (Cruiser) and guys that work on engine internals professionally (like 5speed) say - "Don't use Fram filters" - that's good enough for me. A few dollars savings a year is not worth even the possibility of a problem.
Wix 51515 / Motocraft FL-1A / Napa Gold 1515. Depends on which store I'm in when the oil change bug strikes. They're oversized so it's about an extra half quart, but I get Rotella by the gallon anyway so I always have some left over.
So lets just assume that at 5000 miles, the Fram is 75% contaminated.
Let's not because that's something you just made up.
And contamination does not equal obstruction. In fact Fram notes
The most commonly used filter media is cellulose, which is a natural material that presents a random and irregular field of fibers to the oil. By itself, it can only deliver about 80% dirt-trapping efficiency.
By adding microscopic synthetic fibers, small windows are created that trap the smaller dirt particles without affecting the flow of oil. Blending synthetic fibers with cellulose increases a filter's dirt-trapping efficiency and its dirt-holding capacity for higher levels of engine protection and longer filter life.
And you still have the pressure relief bypass that will allow unfiltered oil (YES OMIGOD UNFILTERED OIL!!!) to flow in the unlikely event of total occlusion.
03-20-2019, 11:45 PM
