Safe Speed Forums

I change the oil a lot, but I often don't bother with the filter ... it seems a waste of time. They're dear (almost as much as the oil), they're hard to get off, it's messy, dirty and some oil always gets on the floor. Is it really necessary to change the filter each time? Who knows?

PS: and another thing. Why don't they put lugs on the filters, so they're easy to get off?

If you are using a top quality fully synthetic it probabally makes more sense to keep the oil and change the filter!

Indeed, people using by-pass systems will often do this along with sending a small sample of oil for analysis to see if it needs changing aswell This may sound extravagant but is well worth it if you are using AMSOIL or similar on a large engine.

As for lugs, yep! it is a pain, there are various tools to do this but a "lug" would make life easier all round! (a small number of filters do have "lugs" or similar, some VAG filters have them but not that many)

In any case, most manufacturers are going back to the 1950's and using replaceable paper elements. Now that IS messy!

Generally I find I can remove (by hand) any filter that *I* have installed. I do them up fairly tight too, so I really dont know how *other* people manage to screw them on so damn tight!

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"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"

As mentioned above - on large engines the filters are cleaned/replaced regularly and the oil sent for analisys (the analisys from the oil manufacturer usually reccomends an oil change for some reason!)

On big engines such as large cargo ship proulsion engines the lube oil is never changed completely unless a major problem has ocurred (microbial infection etc). The filter packs are backflushed several times per day and dismantled and cleaned as part of a PM schedule. If the oil is losing its properties it is "freshened up" by ditching say, 2000 litres (around 2%) and replacing with new. Although these engines by design have an extra set of sealing rings on the piston rod to prevent the cumbustion products contaminating the main lube oil. The contents of the scavenge tank shows how effective this is!

its probably just a scam by the oil suppliers to make you spend more money.

That's what I thought. Some of my bangers have never had a new filter as long as I owned them. I had an Audi from
89 to 95 - that did ~ 100,000 miles with no filter change. I had a Ford escort Mk II from '85 to '88, which I used for
hauling stuff from L'pool to Munich. I did (maybe) a eighty thousand miles in it before it rotted out, w/out a new filter
(and with very few oil changes). It was great little car actually - but poor for skiing trips because the heater was so weak.
But it never burned much oil, no matter how much stick I gave it. It was only a 1300, but it was good for a
constant 105 mph on the auto-bahn - I wonder if much "over-maintenance" gets done?

I'm surprised that it should be that expensive to buy a filter. Mine cost me less than a fiver at my local motor factor! If you don't change the filter on a healthy, relatively modern engine, I doubt it would do any short term harm. The worst thing is that when you tip your gallon of nice clean oil into it, there will still be a half a pint or so of dirty oil in the filter cannister, so you'll mix that in as soon as you start the engine. After a while, I imagine that the filter element will get clogged up and usually they have a pressure relief valve inside them so that the element just lifts off it's seat and the oil bypasses it. Obviously at this point, it won't be doing any filtering at all! As the engine gets older, I guess the oil will get dirtier quicker and ultimately, I wouldn't expect the bottom half of the engine to last as long as it might otherwise have done. If you're going down this route, I'd also recommend not changing the air filter too - just throw it away when it gets too clogged. Clearly, if you're not intending to maximise engine life be replacing the oil filter, there's little point in changing the air filter and having the top half of the engine last particularly long either! Besides, air filters tend to be more expensive than oil filters! While you're at it, don't change the antifreeze either. Thanks to global warming (and the deliberately short life of today's motor cars ), we'd be unlucky to get another winter this cold for as long as the car lasts anyway. Don't fall for any of that guff about it also having corrosion-inhibiting properties - that's just a myth put about by the antifreeze manufacturers to make you buy more of their product!

You could write to the car manufacturer and say that you're doing it as a sort of "dirty protest" against their built-in-obsolescence policy! - THAT'LL teach 'em!!

A fiver would keep me going two or three days.



So I save even more money!



I can easily backwash the air filter with the hose pipe.



You know me, Mole - I wouldn't waste the price of a stamp...

Blood hell Abercrombie, you must be getting absolutely fleeced for oil filters, either that or you are buying really cheap oil! A genuine Honda Oil filter is only about 7 quid, but the synthetic oil is about £35. For £7 it is not worth not changing the genuine filter as well as the oil. Do you re-use toilet paper as well?

At a total of £50 for oil, filters each 10,000 miles compared with a very cheap replacement engine costing £700+, I would keep doing the servicing.

My car can have all the oil, tyres, filters and winscreen wipers it wants.

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Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code

Reminds me of a bloke I used to work with who was famously stingy when it came to maintenance. We kept nagging him about the importance of changing his timing belt and EVENTUALLY he asked if it was the sort of thing he could pick up at a scrap yard! Naturally, we gave him the best advice we could under the circumstances:

"Make sure you get one with all it's teeth still on - or at the very least, only a couple missing"!

He was wise, because he really knew how to exploit bangernomics. When you are using bangers, any maintenance at all is a
big risk, because some other fault could crop up and wipe out ALL the gains. One strategy is to avoid most maintenance. If
you avoid a cam belt job, a few oil changes, and so forth, pretty soon you've saved up enough for a new banger,
especially when you consider the "downtime" to do the job. So you are automatically ahead - any more after that
is gravy, and you get the AA/RAC etc. to absorb the risk of a breakdown.

Nope - the filters cost a fiver or more, and the oil to the right standard is about 8 pounds, from Wilkinsons. And there's nothing synthetic about it either - I always buy real oil!

I could get a whole car and do 30,000 miles in it for £700. It's best to buy from pensioners who have got too old to drive, I have found. They sometimes have all the paperwork from new. On the other hand, a full Wilkinson service costs £13 pounds. Hm... it's a hard choice, eh?

With your oil policy I would make sure you buy cars woth simple 8 valve push rod engines.
I hope those pensioners have preserved that car with lots of nice synthetic oil and genuine oil filters

Maybe you could blend that oil with some 2nd hand chip oil

_________________
Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code

I couldn't care less, because the synthetic oil advantage is a myth. Why put dear oil in a banger?



PS: the taxi cab survey in this link is particularly convincing about the "synthetic myth":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_ ... advantages

Of course, it's even more likely to be futile in the UK, which doesn't suffer the severe weather that they have in North America (exp. New York), and thus there is less cold start damage. In all, synthetic oil appears to be an expensive, useless luxury.

Hmmmm. Would that be the same site that says:

"Filter Change Interval
Back in the days of 3000 mile oil changes many manufacturers recommended filter changes only half as often because the filter did not become clogged with dirt at only 3000 miles. This was good advice back then, especially because with non-detergent motor oils a lot of the sludge remained stuck to internal engine parts rather than being carried in the oil to the filter. Nowadays the filter should be changed at every oil change. "

?????

That aside, I broadly agree about fully synthetic oils - but not COMPLETELY!

In older petrol engines, fully synthetic can not only be a waste of money but a positive DISADVANTAGE! Try running your old Moggy Minor on Mobil 1 and see how long it lasts! This is for a whole load of reasons that I don't pretend to fully understand but principally, I believe, to do with engine oil temperature and engine manufacturing tolerances.

ON THE OTHER HAND, synthetic oils are the main reason I don't have to change the oil (or filter)! in my 807 for 20,000 miles - and that's a diesel! Similarly a lot of the current manufacturers (notably VW) are going over to variable service intervals. I recently ran a little Skoda diesel for 32,000 miles before it asked for a FIRST service - never mind a subsequent one! Remember when the first service used to be at 1000 miles?!

And they say cars are getting more expensive to maintain!

I doubt even YOU would class someone who wants to use a second-hand timing belt as "wise"! Fair enough - if you want to use the "bangernomics" maintenance principle and you don't need to reliably maintain tight schedules, don't bother with anything at all - just drive it 'til it drops and get another one. BUT if you DO decide to carry out some maintenance, DON'T use a second hand cam belt!!!

Ironically, it's probably people like YOU who contribute to the premature death of the cars in our scrapyards - and then have the brass neck to moan that cars these days don't last as long as they should! If everyone followed the correct service schedule to the letter for the life of the car, you might even find that you achieve you ambition for more durable cars without the manufacturers having to lift a finger! In fact, I think I've rumbled you! You're actually a double agent working FOR the manufacturers to try and get cars off the road quickly so that they can sell more new "product"! how's that for a conspiracy theory!?

It's OK to use a second hand cam belt, as long as you change the whole engine as well!



By the time they get to me, it's an economic argument. I'd prefer everyone in the line before me to be totally scrupulous about maintenance, even though I'll do none. I'd also like the makers to spend a fortune on durability, because all that is depreciated away once I get hold of them. I'm almost sure you are playing the exact same game, so it's logical for you to want more durability as well. I can't make out what you want, sometimes.

I have heard that Skoda in particular are under a lot of pressure to add costs to the consumer. You can wait until it happens to you, or you can accept the figures from the RAC study - your choice.

Sounds about right to me anton.

I use Valvoline VR1 20w-50 mineral oil in the TVR (4l v8 Rover push rod engine), as it does track days I use the ratio 1 track mile = 10 road miles when calculating when to change the oil - though it tends to get done every other track outing anyway. This engine is not designed to use modern low viscosity synthetic oils, using one would at the least be expensive if not damaging to the engine.

In my cars with turbo engines I use Silkoline fully synthetic oil, the oil is used to cool the turbo bearings and at the temperatures it has to deal with the viscosity modifiers used in mineral oils would break down pretty quickly. At least that is what is said, I do not run a chemistry lab so have to take this on trust.

Mind you, I do not run my cars on bangernomics principles. I like the idea of saving money (Yorkshireman ), however it is too easy to go from cheap oil to cheap tyres and brake pads with brake fluid more water than oil. Then you slip from banger to death trap.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May