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A though I have been having as of late. Has anyone upgraded from our crappy style of filter to a more modern (actually not so modern) cartridge filter?

As I have been working on more and more German cars, which are known for their long lasting time between oil changes and over 200K plus miles and such, talking to a couple of techs and spending more time on the BMW and Mercedes forums it seems that they contribute a lot of that to their oil filters. My though it the 540i I am changing the engine in right now has a remote oil filter, and is a cartridge style.

they look like this


In a can like this:


After you change the oil you see things like this:


My wife's car looked nowhere near that dirty and after 1 year and about 26K miles which is the factory recommendation on oil changes. It has been about 6 months since I changed the oil in her car and probably 10+K miles and is still nice and clear. Now I would not go that far without an oil change but I think this filter system could be more beneficial than what we currently use.

I think my plan will be to get a remote oil filter adapter and a filter cartridge from a 540 and start from there. Any thoughts?

The benefits from the cartridge system come from filter area and filter efficiency. I doubt I could, but want to state that I don't want to discourage your tinkering. But, an oversize and high filter efficiency spin on filter will provide the same benefit for our cars. The 90 - 95 Corvette ZR1 filter that has been covered is a big improvement. This is especially true if you get a high quality (high filter effiency) model like the PureOne PL14619. Now you have a much larger (haven't calculated, but could easily be 2 - 3x filter area compared to stock) and the highest filter efficiency (99.9% at 20 microns) that you're likely to find anywhere - including a cartridge.

All cars had a canister style filter years ago and back then people were buying adapters to swap over to the cartridge style like today's filters. You think canister is actually better?

Its mostly about filter media material. Definitely would not put Fram on any of my vehicles.

mitmaks wrote:Its mostly about filter media material. Definitely would not put Fram on any of my vehicles.

Wish I had the picture of my Fram filter on my dead K8 as it came out just for this post! OEM or K&N on all my cars

From the techs I have spoken to and the information that I have come across as of late can filters like what we have will be going obsolete and almost all newer cars are going back to a cartridge filter systems as they are more superior. They are quite a bit larger than just about any can filter I have seen other than the one I use on my 55' ford. I converted my ford to a can style filter years ago from a cartridge style. But in the 50's they were not so good.

Oil filtration is key, and if this allows for longer oil and engine life I think it is worth it. Especially if the entire thing cost me less than 100 bucks. There is a thread on here somewhere where someone cut open like 3 used can filters and the insides.. well.. are not so good in comparison. I will see if I can find it.

If you are so worried about oil filtration you might as well buy a dual oil filter relocation kit.

I've been kind of wanting to get a relocation kit just for the sake of convenience, would be kind of cool to try something like this.

I know theres a guy in Calgary who does this with his Celica but aside from car shows I've never seen or heard about it.

mitmaks wrote:If you are so worried about oil filtration you might as well buy a dual oil filter relocation kit.

That might be a bit overkill.

I am not that worried about it, just seems like this could be an affordable upgrade to a better filter system. Doing some searching on the topic I have found there is or seems to be a difference in filters just between conventional oil and synthetic oil filters. I came across this site that has a bunch of information but have not had time to confirm or deny what they are saying. http://www.synlube.com/oilfilters.htm

I know napa has Platinum oil filter, supposed to last like 7-10K miles or something like that. I would never leave a filter on for that long synthetic or not.

RobMinhas wrote:I've been kind of wanting to get a relocation kit just for the sake of convenience, would be kind of cool to try something like this.

I know there's a guy in Calgary who does this with his Celica but aside from car shows I've never seen or heard about it.

Why? Changing oil filter on mx3 is already easy, you don't even have to lift car to reach filter, its so conveniently located.
Have you tried changing oil filter on Nissan or Honda lately, those engineers should be slapped every time you change filter.

You can't possibly fathom how lazy I am Mitmaks. Even leaning over the IM is a PITA.

RobMinhas wrote:You can't possibly fathom how lazy I am Mitmaks. Even leaning over the IM is a PITA.

Lazy people get their oil changed at wal mart

Well it is easy to change the GS filter as it is right up front, assuming you have not lowered the car at all. The RS is on the back of the block, can be a pain.

Or you do like me an remove AC and PS then you have nothing in he way to get your arm behind the engine!! I was able to fill my transmission without removing anything besides the speedo gear!
For an oil filter upgrade the cartridge style is ok but it all come down to how tight the paper pleats are together! I stick with WIX because it has one of the better designs