The Best Oil Filters For Your Car (Buying Guide) 2018

What's an Oils Filter?

Generally, an oil filter has one of the most important roles in maintaining your car. This component is specifically designed to “filter” small dirt particles or contaminants from the oil you use in your vehicle; therefore, removing any impurity that may affect your car’s engine. Without an oil filter, your car and its engine will wear out easily. It does act like the kidney of your vehicle.

Consisting of a tapping plate, anti-drain back valve, filter medium, pleats centre, steel tube, relief valve, end disc and retainer, enclosed in a thin metal, an oil filter works in such a way that contaminants pass through its primary and secondary media types. Primary media can filter small particles of 25 to 30 microns, while secondary media can stop particles that are as small as 5 to 10 microns. The longer your filter is the better; as this means that more contaminants are filtered along its way.

Types of Oils Filters

There are a lot of oil filter types, and we’ve found 6 of them: mechanical, cartridge and spin-on, magnetic, sedimentation, centrifugal and HE or High Efficiency oil filter. There are also the 3 most commonly known types: primary, secondary, and magnetic oil filter. Listed below are the following types, with each having a short description on what it does.

1. Mechanical Oil Filter

This type of oil filter use of a filtering media made of bulk materials like cotton waste or pleated filter paper to suspend contaminants that go with the car’s engine oil. As more dirt is filtered by the system, the flow of oil is affected due to the build up of contaminant substances. Mechanical oil filters need to be replaced in a period of time, whether the filtering component or the whole oil filter itself if the media can’t be replaced separately.

2. Cartridge and Spin-On Oil Filter

The first engine oil filters were constructed of cartridge, having a permanent housing and a replaceable filter media. Later on, an oil filter that has a spin on design is introduced in the filtering industry. This type of oil filter has a self-contained housing and a component that can be replaced. These help you change oil filters in a much easier way with more convenience. These filters may vary in terms of its design, the material used and how it’s constructed. Synthetic materials are proven to have a longer lasting filtering ability than those traditional filtering components like cardboard, cellulose and filter paper.

3. Magnetic Oil Filter

Magnetic oil filters use electromagnets or magnets to suspend ferromagnetic particles from the engine oil’s flow. One of the good things of having this type of oil filter in your vehicle is that you just have to clean the collected particles on the magnet’s surface to maintain the filter. Even though there’s an advantage with using a magnetic oil filter, there might be some harmful effects caused by the filtering component itself.

4. Sedimentation Oil Filter

With a sedimentation filter, also called “gravity bed oil filter” allows the suspension of contaminants that are heavier than the engine oil, maintaining it at the bottom of the container with the use of the natural occurrence of gravity.

5. Centrifugal Oil Filter

A centrifugal oil filter is another sedimentation media, just being different in terms of the method that this type of filter uses. Instead of gravity, contaminants are filtered from oil in such a way that centrifuges work; with the use of centrifugal force, or the force that comes from rotating devices.

During the process, the pressurized oil goes through the filter’s housing and through a drum rotor that has two jet nozzles to settle the oil flow in the inner housing to get the drum to rotate. The oil passes through the housing wall’s bottom where oil contaminants are then stuck. Because of this obvious reason, the housing should be cleaned from time to time. Failing to do so will lead oil particles collecting in a thick pile that will cause the drum to stop rotating. With that, unfiltered oil will then circulate, easily wearing out your filter.

6. High Efficiency (HE) Oil Filter

This oil filter type is a type of a bypass filter that allows longer oil drain intervals. With the high efficiency oil filter’s pore sizes, that are 3 micrometers, engine wear from continuous contaminant filtering is reduced. Some vehicles are said to have extended the drain intervals for up to 5- 10 times.

As what have been mentioned previously, there are also 3 more filter types: the primary, secondary and magnetic oil filter. Because the magnetic filter type had already been discussed, let’s focus on the first two types.

Primary oil filters are the most commonly used in vehicles. These are specifically designed to filter engine oil of large volumes through limited restrictions to give way to a smooth oil flow even during cold weathers. When the filter becomes clogged, a bypass valve is activated to let oil bypass the filter to lubricate the engine.

Secondary filters, on the other hand, are mostly found on vehicles that use diesel engine. These are designed to get a volume of oil to be passed through the second filter for more filtering. This type of filter can also be used in gasoline engines as it can prevent the engine from wearing off quickly.

Tips On Choosing the Right Oil Filter for Your Car

1. Get a background on the types of oil filters.

You have to be able to distinguish what type of oil filter your vehicle is requiring. As what have been mentioned, each type of oil filter has a different characteristic to get your car running smoothly. Knowing this will give you better and closer choices for your oil filter.

2. Find the right oil filter size for you vehicle.

We all know that oil filters pretty much look the same. However, each oil filter has different parts, sizes, design and construction based on the year and model of car the oil filter is made for. You have to find the right size of filter for your car because if you picked the wrong one, it may not be attached properly and will leak eventually. You can look into your owner’s manual for the suitable oil filter size and shape for your vehicle.

3. Look into the oil filter.

There’s this common misconception that if the oil filter has less filter component inside, it won’t work as well as the other. However, the truth is there are types of filtering media and the amount of it in a filter doesn’t tell the overall filtering ability of the oil filter.

The filtering media is just one of the things you should inspect in an oil filter. Another is the pleats it has, as the more pleats present, the more contaminants are suspended.

4. Make use of an oil filter finder.

To help you find the right filter, you can use an oil filter finder that some online shops offer as one of their features. You just have to fill out what year your vehicle was made, what model and the engine it uses.

Things To Consider When Buying an Oil Filter

This section is just like the last one, but more specific about the things that need to be present in an ideal oil filter. Having more pleats on your filter means that it can capture more contaminants from the engine oil. In addition, having a filter media that can filter small particles of 3 to 10 microns will do a great job.

A nice oil filter also has a metal end cap. Some filters use cardboard, however, it has a tendency to wear out easily. Also, make sure that the bypass valves are made of metal as metal valves are more durable than those that are made of plastic. Check if the gasket is made of flexible rubber to provide an incredible seal.

How Often Do Oil Filters Need To Be Replaced

Like the engine oil, oil filters also need the periodic replacement to maintain the smoothness of your vehicle, inside and out. Because the main role of this component is to filter the dirt from the oil, you have to change it from time to time to avoid the problem of contaminants building up and clogging the filter up.

The perfect time to change your oil filter is when you change your oil. This ideally happens every three to six months. You can ask your trusted mechanic to do this while changing your oil.

Signs of Oil Filter Failure

Normally, you never really realize that the oil filter is actually broken until you notice that your car isn’t running as fine as it used to. It’s hard to tell if the filter is working perfectly fine as most filters have this safety feature that enables unfiltered oil to circulate in your engine as having dirty oil is more important than having none at all. However, despite of this feature, there are some visible signs that your vehicle shows, in case the filter is failing.

1. The engine light being on.

When dirty oil starts circulating in the engine, contaminants may build up within and cause malfunctions. This triggers the Low Engine Oil Light that most cars are equipped with. Some cars even have a Low Oil Pressure Light; and if either of these lights turns on, you might want to check on your oil filter for possible problems.

2. Noticeable leaks.

You know something is up when you see oil leaking from your vehicle. This happens when failing oil filters has no capability to adapt to temperature changes anymore, leading the system to burst. When this occurs, the oil circulates back to the oil pan, having oil to leak from it and your vehicle.

You may also notice that the oil pressure has become lower than the usual because of these leaks as more oil that leaks out from the gasket means the lower oil pressure the engine will have. If the pressure goes too low, the engine itself may have the tendency to fail.

3. Overheating of the engine.

This may be a sign that leads to many issues in your vehicle; however, oil filter failure is one of them. When unfiltered oil circulates, the contaminants from it will build up on the engine, preventing heat conductivity within. This wears out the engine and will result to malfunctioning. When your vehicle exceeds the normal temperature range of 195 and 220 degrees Fahrenheit, it’s time to do an overall check up with your car.

Conclusion 

This article just tackled all about oil filters, what they are and how they work. 10 products from different brands were reviewed, discussing about what each features. A buying guide for oil filters was also given, answering some common questions from consumers. Hopefully, this article had been a great help to let you learn more about this important vehicle component.