My lovely bride's V-6-equipped '13 Toyota Sienna uses a canister-type filter with a two-piece housing guaranteed to make a lot more mess than my '07 Scion tC with a spin-on causing MAYBE a dime-size drop at my messiest. My question is why Toyota and other makes are seemingly abandoning the easy-peasy spin-on filter?
The Toyota filters come with a little doodad that plugs into the small cover on the bottom of the filter cap. It drains the housing.
A better question is why Toyota uses three different filters for their various engines which are all similarly sized.
My question is why do cartridge filters cost so much when they are less material than a spin on?
Well designed cartridge filters are great. The spin-on on my Jeep is always messy to change, as are the ones on the boat engines. The cartridge filter on the BMW is perfect. When you loosen the lid, the filter gets lifted slightly, which opens a valve that drains the housing back to the oil pan. Pull the old filter out, put in the new one, tighten the cap and it's all done with no mess.
The top-loaded GM cartridge filters on the GM 2.4L are terrific.
I think the last time I did an oil change on a car with a canister filter was about 45 years ago. I trust they've improved.
I own two cars with cartridges and one with a spin-on. I dread every time that I have to do oil on the spin-on car. The cartridges are so easy as they top load and the oil drains into the housing and there's no mess and I only need a 13mm wrench. The spin-on car I have to reach up/down into the bowels of the engine bay, hot oil and engine up my arm and pray that the filter is loose enough that I can do it by hand because there's no room to get a tool on it.
Gearheadotaku (Forum Supporter) said:My question is why do cartridge filters cost so much when they are less material than a spin on?
Because they can't skimp on the filtration material?
Pete. (l33t FS) said:Gearheadotaku (Forum Supporter) said:My question is why do cartridge filters cost so much when they are less material than a spin on?
Because they can't skimp on the filtration material?
No metal. They are paper plastic and in some cases a couple o rings. Much cheeper to make.
Whenever you have to ask why a manufacturer did something the first answer is always 'cost'.
Berkely Volkswagen and their stupid cartridge filter in a plastic housing that you can easily overtorque into a plastic housing mounted on the engine block with rubber seals that shrink. Because to fix that colossal oil leak you have to disassemble the entire front of the car and then fight with a hose clamp that can't be seen or reached by adult fingers.
So yeah, I'm not a fan.
The biggest reason driving the return to cartridge filters is a European environmental directive relating to filter disposal. They think the hard shell of the spin on filter makes it less recyclable. The fact that they can be a lot cheaper made it an easy sell to the industry.
Sometimes I do a crappy job with changing my oil. Spilling it, all over my hands, spill the pan or overfill the recycle jug.
Today was one of those days.
My JK Wrangler had the cartridge style filter but it was right on top of the engine. Yeah, you could over-torque the cap and crack the housing but it really made oil changes easy.
My Ram on the other hand, has a spin on style but it's located on the passenger side of the engine block right above the steering rack. You have to angle it to thread it out of the trans lines which spills hot oil all over. It's in a terrible spot.
I bought this for draining the filter housing for my 2017 Camry. Made it a lot easier and cleaner.
I'm not a fan of cartridge filters, but I don't remember the one on my wife's '14 Sienna ever being messy. The new cartridge should come with a drain spout that plugs in when you remove the lower plug. My complaints are that it's slower than changing a spin on filter and you can't pre fill the filter as much as a vertical spin on. At least the one in the Sienna was metal. The one on her new Telluride is plastic. It does have a nice feature in that it has a built in drain spout. Unscrew a few turns and wait for it to drain. Still slow though.
TurnerX19 said:The biggest reason driving the return to cartridge filters is a European environmental directive relating to filter disposal. They think the hard shell of the spin on filter makes it less recyclable. The fact that they can be a lot cheaper made it an easy sell to the industry.
When VW introduced some new car, there was a blurb in the press release that the oil filters were 100% incineratable. (incinerable?)
I still think it's a quality thing as far as expense goes. Most people never cut open a new oil filter to look at the filtration media, with a cartridge, it's all right there, so they can't skimp out. They have to take greater care to glue the ends of the media on, so the manufacturing process might require more quality inspections, and a higher rejection rate. The filter media is usually larger in a cartridge filter, too.
Both my Miata and my F-150 have horizontally oriented spin-on filters that make an unholy mess when I change the oil. My Cayman has a vertically oriented cartridge filter and I can change the oil without spilling a drop.
Boost_Crazy said:My complaints are that it's slower than changing a spin on filter and you can't pre fill the filter as much as a vertical spin on.
At least on the BMW one, I'd say it's about the same amount of time as a decently accessible spin on. However, you've got a good point about not being able to pre fill. On mine, because of the drain feature in the housing, you can't pre-fill it at all, as any oil in the housing just dumps to the oil pan until the filter and cap are seated to close the drain valve.
Fortunately, it's a metal housing for the plastic cap to screw into, so you'd have to get pretty stupid with it to break anything. You can see the filter housing off to the side (remote mounted) in the picture below:
In reply to rslifkin :
I remember a lot of those with broken mounts, ziptied in place.
This isn't really cartridge specific. The last generation S10 Blazer was really bad for the remote spin-on filters' mount to corrode off of its mounting points. Usually about the same time that the oil cooler lines were sweating, so everything between the engine and radiator would get changed all at once.
Used to have a large collection of half-broken remote mounts. I had some idea of using them for something, like a parts washer fluid filter.
Non-cartridge filters also make it super easy to cut them open and inspect for "stuff".
Newer (?) Subarus may have the easiest canister style filter location (a little spill tray is built into the housing)
If you're over torqueing the VW canister cap, you're really hulk smashing it. Snug it down, you're done, no need to crank away on it.
Pete. (l33t FS) said:In reply to rslifkin :
I remember a lot of those with broken mounts, ziptied in place.
This isn't really cartridge specific. The last generation S10 Blazer was really bad for the remote spin-on filters' mount to corrode off of its mounting points. Usually about the same time that the oil cooler lines were sweating, so everything between the engine and radiator would get changed all at once.
Used to have a large collection of half-broken remote mounts. I had some idea of using them for something, like a parts washer fluid filter.
On the BMW ones, it's usually the rubber vibration isolator mounts that tear and fail. Holding the canister firmly while loosening and tightening the cap takes a lot of stress off the mounts and greatly reduces the failure risk.
BMWs cartridge system on top of the engine is the best I've dealt with so far. Zero mess and the "hard" part of an oil change is easy to access.
Mazdas cartridge system wasn't quite as good. The drain plug on the filter housing kinda worked but there was always still some oil inside that would drip onto everything.
The worst spin on was a F150 from the early teens. Ford put this drain tray over the front subframe or something (can't remember, I think the EPS rack was there too) and it drained off the front and the back. No matter what the oil went everywhere. And the drain tray would hold some in places I couldn't access. I hated that.
aircooled said:Non-cartridge filters also make it super easy to cut them open and inspect for "stuff".
Newer (?) Subarus may have the easiest canister style filter location (a little spill tray is built into the housing)
Knock a hole in the filter with a punch before you check fluids/tire pressures/jack the car up/drain the oil, and change the filter as the last step in the oil change process, you won't even need to wipe out the little tray before spinning the new filter on.
stanger_mussle (Forum Supporter) said:My JK Wrangler had the cartridge style filter but it was right on top of the engine. Yeah, you could over-torque the cap and crack the housing but it really made oil changes easy.
My Ram on the other hand, has a spin on style but it's located on the passenger side of the engine block right above the steering rack. You have to angle it to thread it out of the trans lines which spills hot oil all over. It's in a terrible spot.
Dodge Rams seem to consistently have the worst filter locations
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