break in hints?

[Boit4852]

Boit,

Actually you speak common sense.

Max

Thanks. My opinions on maintenance are just that, mere opinions based on my 65 years on Earth. I am not the end-all of knowledge and have no monopoly in it. It makes sense to me that with the harsh environment these machines operate in, frequent oil and filter changes are the way to go.

 

[cpurvis]

When asked the question, "Which filter does a better job of filtering, a brand new one or one reaching the end of its useful life?", what does common sense tell you?

 

[Boit4852]

When asked the question, "Which filter does a better job of filtering, a brand new one or one reaching the end of its useful life?", what does common sense tell you?

Did I step on your tail, dawg? If you want to leave your filter on your engine forever, go for it. Never change for all I care. Take your hostility elsewhere. I'm not going to argue the virtues of a new filter vs one at the end of its 'useful life'. You take the route you choose and I'll take mine.

 

[bertsmobile1]

When asked the question, "Which filter does a better job of filtering, a brand new one or one reaching the end of its useful life?", what does common sense tell you?

Well just to be pedantic, an old filter will filter better than a new one
But a new one will not go onto bypass or reduce the volume of oil flowing.:confused2:

 

[cpurvis]

Did I step on your tail, dawg? If you want to leave your filter on your engine forever, go for it. Never change for all I care. Take your hostility elsewhere. I'm not going to argue the virtues of a new filter vs one at the end of its 'useful life'. You take the route you choose and I'll take mine.

No, you didn't step on my tail. Did I step on yours? If so, my apologies.

What I did was ask a simple question that you apparently chose not answer and stretched it into "never changing a filter." I have NEVER advocated "never" changing a filter. All I've ever said is that changing more often than the interval specified by the engine manufacturer is counter productive--a waste of time and money and actually does a worse job of filtering than following the book.

bert answered the question in the first line of his post--A DIRTY filter does a better job of filtering than a brand new one. Let that soak in. The DIRTIEST air your engine will ever see is with a BRAND NEW, clean filter. Same thing also applies to oil filters. As a filter traps particles, it will trap smaller and smaller particles that it could not trap when new.

What about a filter that is so dirty it has gone into 'bypass'? Bypass oil filters are used in applications where less damage will occur if the filter lets unfiltered oil 'bypass' the filter and continue to lubricate and cool the engine rather than reduce or stop flow. Dirty oil is better than no oil at all but if you follow the manufacturer's recommendations, you'll never have to worry about an oil filter going into bypass.

I think where a lot of confusion and the apparent conflict with 'common sense' comes from is the terminology used. A 'new' or 'clean' filter just sounds like it does a better job of filtering oil or air than a 'used' or 'dirty' filter. Subconsciously, maybe we think that the contaminants that are on or in a used filter must get transferred to the oil or air flowing through the filter? They don't, but "common sense" tells us that they do.

These aren't conclusions I reached by myself. If you ever get to talk to a filter manufacturer field representative, they'll tell you the same thing; that's how I learned.

 

[tom3]

I'll throw a log on this fire. I always figured if an oil filter is catching any metal particles that would damage an engine, that engine is already too far gone. But since there is one on there might as well change it every other change. Just don't see how they can charge 8 to 10 bucks for that little imported filter. But for new engine break in, even with today's manf. techniques, I'd change that oil pretty quick, then run it normally. Well maintained engine will outlast a couple hydros.

 

[bertsmobile1]

I'll throw a log on this fire. I always figured if an oil filter is catching any metal particles that would damage an engine, that engine is already too far gone. But since there is one on there might as well change it every other change. Just don't see how they can charge 8 to 10 bucks for that little imported filter. But for new engine break in, even with today's manf. techniques, I'd change that oil pretty quick, then run it normally. Well maintained engine will outlast a couple hydros.

Over my 51 years of working in a full time job, I have had the priviledge of working in a massive range of industries and every one of them was a real eye opener.
Nothing is ever as simple as it seams, particularly when it comes to what some thing costs, be it a basket ball hoop and a bit of tarmac in a school playground through to a 200 ton autoclave in a bauxite plant.
The bulk of my work life was in transport either as a contractor, company owner or warehouse manager.
Now for your filter.
They are bought in the thousands because the filter factory might only make that particular filter once every years for high volume ones to every 2 years for others.
Filter factories will usually only have a few production lines so can only make a dozen or so different one at at any time and there are thousands of filters.
The machines have to work flat chat with the minimum of changeover or set up time or the factory runs at a loss.
Thus Briggs have already paid for them long before you by them.
If you know people in retail you will know this is the opposite of what usually happens, retailers generally stock what they can sell before they have to pay their supplier.
In warehousing you really see it, in the first week of a month, the pickers run 2 x 12 hour shifts , every delivery van leaves totally full and you have to call in outside drivers to take up the slack.
On the last week of the month, the pickers are playing fork lift basket ball, the floor have been swept so many times it is shinny & the delivery drivers barely have enough freight on board to cover the floor.
This is because the retailers pay monthly, a month in arrears from the end of the month.
So recieved on the first day of the month then they have all that month & the following one to pay for the goods by which time they hope you have bought it before they have to pay for it.

In my warehouses a pallet space was worth anything from $ 20 to $ 75 a week depending upon the size & throughput of the warehouse.
Briggs would have anything from 1 to 50 ( numbers pulled from the blue ) pallets of each of their oil filters, accruing warehousing costs an a daily basis, sitting on the floor.
These are at manufacturing cost, plus freight to the warehouse, as freight companies usually get paid at drop off, or they don't drop the freight.
The filters they sell to retailers early in the piece make a really good profit but by the time they get to the reorder stock level, those filters are being sold at a loss.
And that does not include oppertunity cost losses or overdraught interest those filters have incurred or interest that could have been made on the cost price of the filters lost.
Also that does not include the cost of getting someone to pull 1 filter from the pick face to add to my order, invoicing me, loading it onto a van and delivering it to my workshop.

Thus a filter that might have cost Briggs $ 2 ex filter factory door ends up costing you $ 10 in a shop
People who know it was sold to Briggs for $2 will get onto face book and carry on claiming rip off but in reality they are barely covering costs.
When it gets to the point that keeping the filters in stock is costing a lot more than they are selling them for, Briggs do a bulk order special to get rid of the old stock before they end up costing double what they are selling them for.
This is one reason why Chinese mowers are so cheap, no warehouses full of spare parts costing more money to store & deliver than the retail price customers pay for them.

 

[mhavanti]

Bert,

You've said a mouth full and you are absolutely correct about costs. On the manufacturer and distribution end, we deal in miniscule percentages unlike wholesalers and retailers.

Only thing I'm going back to the front and inject once again. A new filter does filter better than an old one. As I said, Hughes Wholesale, one of the nine businesses we owned was a part of Flo Pro Industrial Filtration that manufactured Briggs, Kohler and every filter using companies filters out there. At times, would have Ford contract, GM contract, Chrysler, Detroit, Cummins, Perkins, Kubota, Harley, Mack, Continental as well as hundreds upon hundreds of cars, trucks, motorcycles, mowers, industrial engines of air (fuel) cooled, water cooled engines used on air, land and sea.

My point is, only reason to use a new filter is because the engine needs to continue having cleanest oil possible and not one of us here actually believes a dirty or anything with time on it is doing a better job than a new one. If this sounds a bit demonstrative, perhaps it is. Change your oil, change your filter. If you are really having to hammer a motor commercially during the week and don't have time to change the oil and it is past the schedule. Change the filter, top up the oil and move along until you can give the unit a break.

Cost of the filter is minimal compared to the engine.

Sorry about stepping back in. Y'all can take it from here.


Max

 

[bertsmobile1]

Bert,

You've said a mouth full and you are absolutely correct about costs. On the manufacturer and distribution end, we deal in miniscule percentages unlike wholesalers and retailers.

Only thing I'm going back to the front and inject once again. A new filter does filter better than an old one. As I said, Hughes Wholesale, one of the nine businesses we owned was a part of Flo Pro Industrial Filtration that manufactured Briggs, Kohler and every filter using companies filters out there. At times, would have Ford contract, GM contract, Chrysler, Detroit, Cummins, Perkins, Kubota, Harley, Mack, Continental as well as hundreds upon hundreds of cars, trucks, motorcycles, mowers, industrial engines of air (fuel) cooled, water cooled engines used on air, land and sea.

My point is, only reason to use a new filter is because the engine needs to continue having cleanest oil possible and not one of us here actually believes a dirty or anything with time on it is doing a better job than a new one. If this sounds a bit demonstrative, perhaps it is. Change your oil, change your filter. If you are really having to hammer a motor commercially during the week and don't have time to change the oil and it is past the schedule. Change the filter, top up the oil and move along until you can give the unit a break.

Cost of the filter is minimal compared to the engine.

Sorry about stepping back in. Y'all can take it from here.


Max

No problems Max and no arguements about changing filters & oil, cheapest part & easiest to replace.
Just being pedantic as the debris on the outside of the filter medium, makes the filter thicker and filter out finner particles so it FILTERS better but it FLOWS worse.
This is how filter housings with replacement indicators work either by measuring a reduced flow through or pressure on the flitered side.

 

[mhavanti]

By the way Bert, since you and I have been in this business, something from the manufacturing end we get to be involved in are the claims against the filter manufacturers from all kinds of claims many of which some of the folks may have not had much on the ball. Yet, we have to take every claim seriously as the one we don't can end up costing up a years production run on a line.

We've had claims of bearing failure, claims of washed down cylinders, too lean, too, too, too, too and more of the same. One thing you want to do is go the extra mile to check out each claim. Usually what we'd find and about the only thing we ever found was oil contamination from fuel due to not changing the air filters, thereby causing extremely rich fuel operations. By the way, just one example, we would never get finished discussing all the examples we investigated. If we ever found a problem in any of the brands of filters we manufactured, we wanted it taken care of day before yesterday or even better, last month.

Again, the only place oil is wasted is on the ground. Another way to waste oil is not changing the filters often.

God love you all my friends,

Max