Oil Filter Brands to Avoid [5 Wost Oil Filter Brands] • Clutch Geeks

There are a variety of oil filters to choose from for your vehicle. And there are also bad oil filters to stay away from. What are the worst oil filter brands, and which ones should you avoid?

The oil filter brands to avoid are as follows:

Fram Oil Filters
Frantz Oil Filters
Supertech Oil Filters
Manufacturer Brands of Oil Filters
Motorcraft Oil Filters

According to car owners’ real testimonies, these brands failed to deliver what they were expected to do, and that is to clean and filter the engine oil before it circulated inside the engine. So, they’re unable to protect automobile engines against impurities that can harm the engine’s cylinders, pistons, and other sensitive components.

Read on to know more about the oil filter brands that you should avoid, including the reasons why you should avoid them and other information related to this topic.

What Are the Oil Filter Brands to Avoid?

Many car owners are unaware of the significance of their vehicle’s oil filter. The majority of them purchase a specific oil filter since it is cheap. They are not fully aware that the oil filter is critical to maintaining the performance of their vehicle’s engine.

If you want your car’s engine to feel smooth, the friction between all of the mechanical parts that make up the engine should be kept to a minimum. The engine oil serves this purpose. But this oil will become dirty over time. As a result, the friction between the engine’s parts will increase.

That is why you need a high-quality oil filter. It will remove any impurities from the oil and keep it clean.

There’s a significant difference between a cheap filter and a good filter. And it’s not just the price. The key difference is how they carry out their functions. A filter can only do its job effectively if it is made of high-quality materials that are built to last. This is something that the worst oil filter brand can’t do.

The oil filter brands you should avoid are typically composed of low-quality materials. The quality of their construction is inferior to that of the more expensive filters. These low-cost filters allow unfiltered engine oil to circulate inside the engine, causing damage to the engine’s delicate components.

According to the actual testimonies of car owners, the below oil filter brands are the ones that you should never use in your vehicle:

1. Fram Oil Filters

Fram is well-known for its low-cost filter products, which are usually found at your local auto parts store. An Allied Signal division originally made these filters. Since Honeywell acquired Allied Signal in 2011, they are now being manufactured by Honeywell.

A car owner claims to have purchased a Fram oil filter, installed it, and then started the engine. According to their testimony, they immediately heard a horrifying sound of harsh metallic grinding. The sound, however, faded fast.

They heard the same terrifying sound the next day as they started the engine. Every day, and every time they started their car, it was the same thing. They suspected there wasn’t enough engine oil in the engine.

The Fram filter turned out to be defective right out of the box. This vehicle’s owner noticed that it lacked a drain back valve. The oil should not be able to flow back through this valve. But the oil keeps flowing back because the filter has no valve.

As a consequence, every time they started the car, it had a dry start. For a few seconds after turning the ignition key, there was no oil in the engine. That’s what’s causing the engine’s alarming metallic grinding noise.

Fortunately, the engine was not seriously damaged. They immediately replaced the oil filter with a different brand. But they wonder: if this obvious flaw went unnoticed by the manufacturer, what other problems in the oil filter did they miss?

Fram oil filters are also one of the top oil filter brands to avoid for the following reasons:

The pleated filter media is thin, and the filter canister does not have enough of it.
Manufacturers built the drain-back valve from a low-cost stamped metal rather than a spring.
The outer wall media was designed to be thinner than that of other filter brands.
Because there is no metal clip on the seam of the media, it can break apart, enabling unfiltered oil to circulate inside the engine.
The end caps on a Fram oil filter are made of cardboard.

An oil filter production line engineer from an Allied Signal Fram factory had provided information concerning the oil filter’s unsatisfactory features. Fram did not conduct any quality control, according to this engineer, who also revealed the following information:

After filtering only a few contaminants, some Fram designs block and go to bypass.
There are pleat designs that are so densely packed against the center tube. They will be blocked off with impurities in a short period of time.
The filter base has a threading problem. Metal strands are left behind in poorly formed threads.
Leakage paths often develop and paper end discs aren’t properly centered on the elements.
It has poor quality paper filtration media.
There’s an inconsistent process of curing the paper resin. Elements could be something as visibly burned to completely white.

2. Frantz Oil Filters

Another car owner swears that they will never use an oil filter called Frantz. They think it’s merely an aftermarket filter. This filter utilizes two oil lines and a canister with a replaceable element. A roll of toilet paper serves as its filtering element. According to the car owner, this oil filter is not approved by any engine manufacturer.

Frantz oil filters were originally produced by the Frantz Filter Company. This company was founded in 1953 by John Frantz. It was founded on the idea of developing products and processes for cleaning automotive oil. Lubrication Specialties, Inc., a manufacturer of Hot Shot’s Secret products that focus on particular solutions to diesel engine problems, purchased Frantz Filters in 2014.

3. Supertech Oil Filters

Supertech is another oil filter brand that should be avoided. Supertech oil is produced by Supertech. This brand was born when Wal-Mart Stores Inc. partnered with Wix, a well-known maker of oil filters. Paper cover plates are utilized on Supertech’s oil filters, but they also provide upgraded versions with steel cover plates.

When it comes to product quality, the Supertech oil filter is on par with Fram. Their oil filters are almost identical in design and construction. If you open either of these two filters and look inside, you’ll find that they have comparable, if not identical, designs, parts, and materials.

Walmart’s financial clout was used to promote Supertech. Wix was in charge of the oil filter engineering. Walmart entered the oil filter business in response to Bosch’s entry into the automotive sector.

Walmart dropped Purolator, another oil filter provider, as a distributor shortly after Bosch announced its entry into the car market. With the support of Wix, Walmart began producing Supertech. This business partnership has only been in operation for around 10 and 1/2 years.

4. Oil Filters Sold Under the Manufacturer’s Name

Some car owners insist that they would never use oil filters made by the carmakers themselves. Ford and Suzuki, for example, use the oil filters that they manufacture in their vehicles.

Some car owners refuse to use manufacturer-branded oil filters since they are overpriced and hardly adequate for the job at hand. These filters were produced by the lowest-bidder, an oil filter manufacturer. The filter canisters are then stamped with the car manufacturer’s logo.

5. Motorcraft Oil Filters

Motorcraft appears to be a registered trademark of the Ford Motor Company, according to its official website. This means that all Motorcraft oil filters are made under Ford’s management. So, to put it another way, this filter is essentially a Ford product.

One customer described how they purchased a Motorcraft oil filter from a local auto parts store. They saw that the boxes on the shelves appeared to have been handled before, with some of them visibly opened.

They chose the box with the best appearance. But they immediately heard rattling sounds coming from inside the box. After opening the box, they discovered the plastic cage within the filter rattling from end to end.

Another observation was that, like the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy, the whole oil filter slightly slanted, and the elements aren’t totally bonded. With a little effort, they could get the seam open.

Uneven heating or coating was also visible on the filtering element. The car owner assumed that by installing it in their vehicle, most of the oil circulation would be bypassed.

This car owner claims that the product was faked by the supplier. It’s also possible that they’re overstocks or rejects that have been restuffed with fakes. They wonder: ” Could Motorcraft’s own service centers be involved?” End-users are suspicious of the oil filters because of these concerns and queries.

What Makes a Good or Bad Oil Filter?

Low-quality oil filter brands should be avoided because they’re a waste of money. They can potentially harm your vehicle’s engine. You must recognize the difference between a good and a bad oil filter to avoid them. So, what are the things you should be on the lookout for?

Filter Media

The media is the component of an oil filter that filters the oil. A good quality oil filter will typically have double the amount of filter media found in a cheap oil filter.

The filter media of a good quality oil filter is also double that of a cheap filter when stretched. The longer and more efficient the filtering power is, the more filter media there is in the filter canister, and vice versa.

The media will no longer filter the contaminants in the oil once it is full. Unfiltered oil will be recirculated into the engine as a result. If not addressed, impurities will pollute the oil and cause harm to the parts of the engine.

Anti-Drain Back Valve

An anti-drain back valve is always present in a good filter. When your car is not running, this valve is vital because it stops oil from completely draining to the motor’s bottom. When there is still some oil up there, the odds of a dry start are reduced.

Dry starts are bad for your engine because they create excessive wear on the engine parts and insufficient lubrication in the first 10-15 seconds of engine startup. During the engine’s lifetime, this is where the majority of the wear and tear happens.

Build Quality

A high-quality oil filter will last longer than a low-cost one. Because the filter’s body will be built of thicker steel, it will be heavier. More filter media will be included, as well as improved rubber gaskets.

Service Life

Synthetic oil today can last up to 10,000 miles. You’ll need an oil filter that can handle that kind of mileage and not change oil filters as frequently. Cheap oil filters only last 3,000 miles before needing to be replaced.

Conclusion – The Worst Oil Filter Brands

Avoid the following oil filter brands since they will not serve their purpose:

Fram Oil Filters – most of these filters are made of low-cost elements.
Frantz Oil Filters – this filter uses toilet paper as a filtering media.
Supertech Oil Filters – this filter is nearly the same as Fram filters in terms of quality.
Oil Filters Sold Under the Manufacturer’s Name – they are typically of lower quality and are created by suppliers, stamped with the car manufacturer’s logo or brand.
Motorcraft Oil Filters – these filters are made of low-quality materials and are poorly constructed.