MamaBear2015

We have a 2002 EX Vtec and a 2000 LX.

The guys at O'Reilly have been selling me on Wix air filters for awhile now, claiming a long company history of making quality filters, etc. But I was just checking on Amazon, for the one we bought last time and it only gets 2-1/2 stars. There are a couple of people complaining that they don't have as many pleats as Fram, so they wouldn't have as much surface area and pass as much air for as long.

Is this true?

If so, I'm wondering if O'Reilly may own Wix or something.

And I'd appreciate your recommendations for the most bang for the buck air filters for these cars, like for example what line of Fram filters? Filters that are affordable and sanely priced, yet give the best air movement and filtration for the money?

Thanks!

GolNat

iTrader: (7)

Can't beat good old OEM.

I think I just have a standard STP filter in my Fit.

Like oil filters I think they are over thought...but maybe there is something I am missing.

MamaBear2015

OEM as in buying them from Honda?

CraigW

iTrader: (1)

^^ Yes, or get online easily enough.

MamaBear2015

It sounds as if some people are equating Fram with OEM, so I was confused.

I'm fine with quality like Fram, but some are saying that Wix is quality and others appear to be saying that they don't have as many pleats, thus less surface area and air flow?

So I wasn't sure which ones might be affordable, be quality and have the most air flow.

pjb3

Filter material and how well the filter seals to the housing makes more difference than number of pleats. The only way to know which filter is better is to find a test of the filters and see how they compare. Between Fram and Wix, I would go with Wix. Fram has a tendency to compete at the lowest price points and while they do have premium filters most are cheaply made for a cheap price.

Unless you drive in extremely dusty conditions it probably doesn't make much difference.

MamaBear2015

Sounds good, thanks pjb3.

HomoPirate

I just installed the cheapest Fram filter from amazon for my 2002 civic ex. The filter is cheap and replacing it is an easy job so doing it once a year is not a big deal.

MamaBear2015

O'Reilly pushes Wix as the highest quality, but then I saw some reviews that said it wasn't so, and they have less pleats. Where was that? On Amazon?

ezone

The number of pleats (folds) has little to do with how well any filter can trap dirt particles.

MamaBear2015

I know that, but doesn't it have something to do with how much volume of air it can pass?

ezone

More pleats only means more surface area of the filter element....but you can't really tell what sort of quality is in that element. Paper is usually the cheapest...for a reason.
By folding tightly, they might be able to pack 4 or 10 square yards of material surface area into a 6 inch by 6 inch square. (pulling numbers out of my *** here)
They might have to use really thin paper to pack a zillion pleats in that 6x6" square, and thinner paper would have bigger holes to let more dirt through.


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What you can't tell by eye is how much dirt a filter can trap and hold, and still be able to flow enough air to keep the engine happy.

“Accumulative Capacity” is a measure of dirt holding/loading capacity before reaching the maximum restriction limit.


Worthwhile toilet reading material:
http://www.nicoclub.com/archives/kn-vs-oem-filter.html



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Any air filter you purchase will be able to flow far more air than the engine is capable of using, while it is new and clean.

After it's been in use for many miles and has collected enough dirt, the volume of air that can freely pass through slowly diminishes ---and if you let it get dirty enough the engine performance maximums eventually become reduced simply because it can't breathe as much air as it needs through an extremely clogged filter.


At no point is your fuel economy reduced because of a dirty air filter on a modern fuel injected engine. The computer measures how much air is entering the engine and adjusts fuel delivery to match that amount of air.


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MamaBear2015

Ok, then the fuel economy drop we're seeing now, is because of the ethanol. We changed both cars' filters in June and have driven no more than about 1000 miles a month. But when winter comes, the ethanol fools us into thinking the filter may be dirty. I have some nasty articles on ethanol - it's pure cronyism between corn farmers and government. We seem to get a 2-3 MPG loss as soon as it comes into the gas each fall, which sure doesn't help the environment, AND it harms these older engines.

https://www.facebook.com/RepealEthanol/?ref=ts&fref=ts

xRiCeBoYx

iTrader: (22)

don't forget that colder air means denser air, and denser air means more fuel being added for combustion. That can also account for some MPG loss.

ezone

You probably have ethanol all year round? (my area sure does, it's almost impossible to find gas without Ethanol added in my town)......10% Ethanol all year round isn't the reason the mileage drops off.

Winter alone causes a reduction in fuel economy.

Cold weather means longer warmup times, and the fact that a cold engine simply requires more fuel just to run, causes a huge economy drop..

My own car can drop 5MPG or more in cold weather, on my usual routine daily commute.


Fuel reading: http://auto.howstuffworks.com/fuel-e...ummer-fuel.htm

Google for more if you want


How so?

They sure can live long here in my area. The ones that don't...don't die because of the fuel LOL

xRiCeBoYx

iTrader: (22)

Same. I average 33-36mpg everyday driving in the warmer months in my 2002, and I've been averaging 25-31mpg when the temperature finally decided to drop, seemingly out of nowhere. lol

MamaBear2015

Good point, and that usually knocks off 1 MPG or 2, but we had a warm spell when the government dictator drones forced them to start adding the ethanol, last fall. The ethanol by itself suddenly dropped the MPG by at least 2, accounting for cooler weather, but not yet cold.

And I highly resent congressional cronies of the corn farmers FORCING me to use something that's destructive of my engine.

MamaBear2015

Nope. This car gets 34.5-35.5 MPG in mixed city-highway driving in the non-ethanol season. Then it drops to 32.5 with the ethanol, and depending on the cooler weather, as low as 30, even lower if it gets super cold.


http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-cult...el-efficiency/

"Assuming you were running straight gasoline and were then forced to switch to E10 (gasoline cut 10 percent with ethanol), your mileage will drop. The big question is by how much. The Environmental Protection Agency says E10 lowers mileage approximately 3 percent, which would drop your mileage from 19.6 to 19.0 mpg. Instead you're citing a drop between 10.2 and 15.9 percent, which, while similar to some E10-induced losses we've heard of, does seem large. We typically hear of mileage drops in the 6- to nearly 10-percent range, but then, folks experiencing a 3- to 5-percent drop probably aren't fired up enough to write us."

Of course, richer mixture. But I accounted for that above.

pjb3

Did you also account for the difference between summer and winter blends of gas as well as the increase in resistance due to cold fluids?

CraigW

iTrader: (1)

I have known since long before having an MPG readout.... that in the winter fuel mileage drops.

That is the way it is.

MamaBear2015

Google: ethanol engine damage

http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars...damage-engine/

PLUS, and I'm purely speculating here ( but judging from various tankfulls, it MAY be happening ) - ethanol in gas can be used to add a little water to our gas too, and it all gets mixed. A good way to cheat consumers and make more profits for the gas companies?

Colin42

pjb3

The article you reference is misleading since there is no engine damage but potential fuel system damage. As was also pointed out, most engines made in the last 30 plus years have changed to materials in the fuels system that are not damaged by ethanol.

So really the main problem is phase separation of water from the ethanol. At 60 degrees a gallon of gas with 10% ethanol can hold 0.633 ounces of water so the tank on a Civic would need about 8 ounces of water before it separates. That is 8 ounces every tankful of gas. My question would be is it better to have ethanol in the gas that absorbs moisture from condensation or have the condensation by itself in the gas? Where I live we have 10% ethanol year round and I have not had problems.

xRiCeBoYx

iTrader: (22)

It's not so much gas companies gaining profit from ethanol addition. It's moreso environmental impact, where ethanol is considered renewable (since we can easily grow metric crap-tons of corn, and hooch is made from corn mash), and combustion of ethanol is cleaner than hydrocarbons (e.g. iso-pentane and heptane, the hydrocarbons found in fossil fuels).

source: quick google-fu research, but I didn't source references from peer reviewed journal articles because I'd likely end up writing a 10-page paper on it. lol

MamaBear2015

Water doesn't damage an engine? Rust?

And the articles I've read said that pre-2005 engines/lines can be damaged by ethanol.


I don't know about you, but I think it's better not to have a crony dictatorship, dictating that I have to do things that are actually bad for the environment and my car. Like that Facebook group says, ethanol should be optional.

ezone

Your cars were designed to use E10 without harm.
Use of E15 would present little difference other than the usual and expected Ethanol related quirks such as fuel economy reduction....and possible check engine light related concerns due to older programming. I've been informed that in newer cars expected to use E15 the main difference is in programming of the engine computer. The rest of the car was already designed to hold and use the Ethanol fuel.


The infrastructure for delivery and use of Ethanol fuels is quite reliable. In the shop I see very few (if any) of the issues mentioned in the article , and 99.9% of the fuel in my area is E10.

(Use of Ethanol fuels in equipment other than modern cars can present other issues, depending.)

Yeah there can be water issues after an occasional gas station gets a flooded underground tank, but problems like that can happen regardless of the fuel type in the underground tank.


That's paranoia IMO. Upstanding businesses won't do that.

MamaBear2015

Burning food crops is bad for the economy, it raises the price of everything with corn in it, AND I've heard that it takes more energy to produce ethanol than you actually get out of using it in cars. Bad deal.

We have a cockatoo for a pet here, and cockatoos are now becoming extinct in Indonesia, along with other species, because they're burning down the forests for palm oil to sell in biofuels.

Want a research paper?

http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2011/ph240/sojka2/

https://www.theguardian.com/global-d...crime-humanity

And for those who are Glenn Beck fans:

http://www.glennbeck.com/content/art...icle/198/2731/

Oh, and: https://www.organicconsumers.org/sci...thanol-cornell

ezone

Water "pooled" in the bottom of a gas tank will cause far more problems than absorbed water held in suspension.
Not from the fuel system. An engine can't run on water.

There's a lot of overlooked details there.

And as stated earlier, all cars built in the last 3 decades or so are able to use E10.


You're certainly old enough to remember when the fuel industry tried to get everyone to use Gasohol starting back in the late 70s, and how big that disaster became? Gasohol became a four letter word, a scourge.....

The car manufacturers learned a lot from that and improved their cars.

Now the fuel industry gives us the exact same Ethyl Alcohol/gasoline blend and calls it Ethanol or 'Exx' instead of Gasohol....and we have few real problems with it.

xRiCeBoYx

iTrader: (22)

Coming from a science background (I hold a BS in Biology and worked as an engineer for 6 years - US Navy nuclear power plant mechanical engineer), I can't quite consider any of those peer reviewed journal articles. Granted, my course of study was mostly medically oriented, but the format of peer reviewed journal articles remains the same. The first article is, for the lack of better words, a research paper, much like I'd submit for a class (as evidenced by "Submitted as coursework for PH240, Stanford University, Fall 2011"), and the other three, I'd barely be able to use as references in such a research paper.

But I digress. This thread has strayed quite a bit from the original intent. If you would like to submit a debate thread in the off topic forum to continue this debate, you may do so.

This goes for all those involved in this debate (myself included), as well as other members that decide they want to contribute, let's get back on topic of air filters. If the thread continues to stray, I will have to lock the thread.

MamaBear2015

So with everything I've shown you on this tangent ( EVEN the fact that it doesn't do a thing for the environment), you still argue passionately for it being dictated in our gas. Are you a corn farmer?