i remember a few months ago there was a discussion about oil filters. at my work i cut open a lot of oil filters so i get to see the insides of many different brands. Mostly they are from customers who get their cars regularly serviced at the shop so i see a lot of the same high quality oil filters. occasionally we get cars that have been taken to *shudder* jiffy lube or some other place. today i cracked open a fram filter and i thought id take a pic to show the difference between a fram filter and a quality filter. i wish i had a pic of the oil filter from the maserati. it not only had many folds but they were zig zagged as well, there was a lot of filtration area.
the fram is obviously the one on the right. look how cheaply made it is. there are not nearly as many folds (less folds means less surface area for filtration). not only that but the ends were just paper as well compared to the metal on the other one. you can see how distored the fram filter has gotten over time, the other filter looks almost brand new
the moral of the story, dont buy fram. i usually recommend oem filters, a lot of auto parts stores dont even carry good filters. plus if you just stick with oem you dont have to worry about if you bought a quality filter or not.
