DanW
Well-Known Member
I'm with you in that it just makes me too nervous to go that far, and I certainly don't need to save the $$ or I wouldn't own this overpriced rolling gold brick. But I 100% guarantee you the filter was not about to cruble. I'd be more concerned about it reaching its particle holding capacity. But this engine combined with the quality of new synthetic oils doesn't push it as hard as other engines or lesser quality oils. And @CarbonSteel has done plenty of used oil analyses to have an idea of the condition of the oil and filter at various mileage leading up to this. He didn't just dive right into 20k miles. He built up to that with careful analysis.
The key stats are insolubles and any sign of oxidation. With him changing at 5k, oxidation just won't be an issue. And Fram's R&D center tests these things to 20k over and over in engines and with oils that punish them much more than the Pentastar. He and I know this from a Fram engineer who was on BITOG and participated in the development of the XG line of filters. But that said, I just don't have the guts to do what he did, Lol. But I'm not surprised at all that it did just fine.
The strength of that filter is far beyond what you would imagine. If @CarbonSteel tears it apart, I'm confident he'll report that it was VERY difficult to do. It is a strong synthetic media backed by a web of nylon or monofilament type material that is bonded to it. The glue on the end caps is so strong that even this strong media will tear before it does. I was unable to separate it from the endcaps.
I've run a Mobil 1 filter (2 OCI's) just to see how they would do (that's as far as I could bear to go). They are not even in the same zip code for pleat strength as the Fram Ultra, but they showed no signs of structural failure and there was no oxidation and insolubles were exactly the same as with 1 OCI. (I actually typically see 1/3 lower insolubles when running the Fram XG, whether at 6k or 12k in my JK. Most often, the M1 filter shows 0.3% insolubles whereas the Fram shows 0.2. On occasion the M1 will show 0.2, but mostly 0.3. The Fram has never shown above 0.2.)
When oil oxidizes is really when a filter loads up, not because of normal particle accumulation. If that oil was oxidizing, which is just not going to happen in a healthy engine at 5k with Shell RTG, it would not only load up the filter, but you'd be able to see it with your eyes. It would be gunky looking, almost like you'd imagine unrefined crude oil to look. His pleats look clean. These major brand highly developed synthetic oils simply protect well enough to keep the particle count from getting high enough to load that filter, or most filters, in 20k miles. That's why you are seeing filter companies advertise 20k on their premium filters. It is becoming the new standard for premium filters.
What would be fun is to see if someone has the courage to run Mobil 1 EP 0w20 for 20k miles. I believe that in a Pentastar, it would easily do it and be in decent shape at the end due to its high PAO content. The oil was designed to survive a turbo/DI engine for that long, which would punish it far worse than this 3.6. Btw, I ran 10k every OCI on our Ford Transit's Ecoboost. The Mobil 1 EP 5w30 held up well, but by then did show some fuel dilution. I only did that because my wife piled miles up so quickly that I could not keep up with 5k intervals. She now has a JLUR and thank God it is so easy to change. I'll have no trouble keeping up with it. But it also would be much less punishing to the oil than that Ford was.
I'll stick with mostly 5k but occiasional 7k to 8k runs in my JL's, and 6k runs in my JK (Lifetime warranty limit). But I like having the confidence that the oil and filter could go much longer.
One last note, He runs the RGT only 5k because we've seen many UOA's on Bitog where that seems to be the sweet spot for that oil in turbo/DI engines. I'm certain it could handle the 8k to 9k or so that our Pentastars are allowed by the oil life monitor. It is a great oil but does not hold up to longer runs as well as some others. The TBN his showed is about where I'd change it, too.
Side note: Fram has changed the construction of their filters by switching from all synthetic to a cellulose/synthetic combo that they publish with slightly better results than the previous media. Their spin-on filters will no longer be backed by metal webbing because the cellulose holds up better than synthetic. However, we don't know if the cartridge filter will change, or not. I've not seen that yet. But one nice thing is that they told me they will move the cartridge production from Korea to the USA. I'll run one and tear it apart when I see one. So far, even with the new packaging, they have not changed and are still made in Korea. Stay tuned.
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