Putting oil in the filter hole

[roaniecowpony]

Huh? Me too!

I use only perfectly filtered oil for pre-filling my filters. But I did hear that baby oil causes pregnancies in women, especially in young fit women.

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[Aramis76]

Run a particle count on new oil out of the bottle and you will clearly see what @Badweissenbier is talking about. He is correct; when I get a chance I will post an ISO particle count of Mobil Super that had quite a few chunks in it. Note they are not visible to the eye and they would have been caught on the first pass through the filter, but they were there and larger than 20um, (which is what the efficiency is on a good filter).

Maybe there are contaminants a little larger than 20um. But as you pointed out, they can't be seen by eye so they are not that big.

Also, we're talking about a very small amount of oil that will cycle through the engine ONCE unfiltered.

So, to extrapolate, we're talking about potentially reducing the life span of the engine by about 30 seconds over the course of the next 10-20 years?

I'm not trying to be a smartass, but this needs to be put into perspective...

 

[CarbonSteel]

Maybe there are contaminants a little larger than 20um. But as you pointed out, they can't be seen by eye so they are not that big. Also, we're talking about a very small amount of oil that will cycle through the engine ONCE unfiltered. So, to extrapolate, we're talking about potentially reducing the life span of the engine by about 30 seconds over the course of the next 10-20 years? I'm not trying to be a smartass, but this needs to be put into perspective...

The point is there is a general assumption that oil is "clean" out of the bottle, but it contains particles that are large enough to cause damage--namely to the bearings so filling an oil filter with oil out of the bottle may not be the wisest choice because the oil will circulate through the engine before being caught by the filter and to be clear, sometimes the oil has to make multiple passes before the filter catches it. The efficiency rating of most top end filters is 99%@ 20um, this means that particles larger than 20um may not be trapped on the first pass and perhaps not on the second. Many filters do not have that high of an efficiency and so the particles will circulate longer before being trapped.

The particles that I saw in the ISO particle test had several that were 40um (even some more than 100um) and higher which could scratch a bearing. Particles smaller than 60um cannot be seen with the human eye, but they can cause wear in the engine. How much wear? I cannot say--that would require some serious $$$ and controlled experiments, but I can say without hesitation that oil is not as "clean" out of the bottle as you might expect and that was the whole point of my post--not to suggest that an engine which has its filter pre-filled with oil out of the bottle will wear out much sooner than one that does not.

 

[Aramis76]

I totally agree with everything you're saying.

But, most filters have a spring-loaded bypass. That system might let oil through without you ever knowing it for the entire time it's installed.

I agree it's a good idea to avoid contaminants, but it's so minimal i'm not worried about it.

Now if I was changing my engine oil, on the beach, during a tornado, then i'd be worried.

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