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How To Select The Best Engine Oil Filter
If you are looking for the best engine oil filter for your next oil change there are a lot of different engine oil filters to choose from. Depending on what kind of vehicle you drive and how you drive will have a lot to do with which engine oil filter you should go with.
The easiest way to find the best engine oil filter for your car is by reading online reviews and watching engine oil filter comparison videos to see which engine oil filter performs the best. Specifically, watch videos that dismantle each engine oil filter and compare them side by side. Once you see a breakdown of different engine oil filters and understand what different parts of the internals do you can then decide which one is best for you.
If you are looking for the best engine oil filter on the market you will want to go with a synthetic oil filter. They offer the best bang for the buck and are only a few dollars more than a conventional cellulose oil filter. But who makes the best synthetic oil filter? Keep reading to find out.
Best Value Engine Oil Filters
Mobil 1 M1-110 Extended Performance Oil Filter
Mobil 1 is one of the premium engine oil filter manufacturers that do not charge outrageous prices. They also offer products that work almost as well as the more premium engine oil filters but at a cheaper price.
This oil filter is tested to removed 99.9 percent of contaminants and is designed to be an extended life oil filter. Like I mentioned earlier I think that you should still go by your vehicle manufacturers oil change intervals but if you use an oil filter that is intended to be an extended life filter I think that it could do a better job of trapping dirt and contaminants over the oil change.
High mileage engine oil filters are designed to hold a large amount of contaminants compared to normal life oil filters, this one is designed to hold up to 28 grams in total capacity. You can check the current prices of the Mobil 1 M1-110 by clicking this link to Amazon here.
Best Performance Engine Oil Filters
Royal Purple 10-2867 Oil Filter
If you just want to go with the best engine oil filter that you can buy period then you would want to go with Royal Purple’s line of engine oil filters.
Royal Purple makes top tier automotive products for car and racing enthusiasts, but they do come at a premium cost. This Royal Purple engine oil filter is an extended life oil filter like the Mobil 1 recommended above.
This filter is rated to be able to filter 100 percent of contaminants and 99 percent at 25 microns. If you want to get the best engine oil filter on the market then look no further and pick yourself up a Royal Purple engine oil filter.
I just want to note that I am not affiliated with Royal Purple, I’ve just done extensive research on which oil filters are the best performing oil filters and Royal Purple is consistently on top. You can check the current prices of this Royal Purple oil filter by clicking this link to Amazon.
Who Makes The Best Engine Oil Filter?
Check out the following videos that compare a multitude of engine oil filters. The top video has a comparison of paper and synthetic engine oil filters that are more common and that you can likely buy at your local auto parts store. The bottom video is a comparison of high-end synthetic engine oil filters that may be tougher to find at local stores. If you like one engine oil filter over the and can’t find it at your local auto parts store you can always order it online.
Engine Oil Filter Buying Guide
Most people are going to understand that an oil filter is designed to filter your oil but from what? Oil filters are designed to filter dust, dirt, and metal flakes from your engine oil to keep it from getting built up too much and eventually turning to sludge inside of your engine.
Material Types
Arguably the most important part of engine oil filters is the type of media used to filter the engine oil. Cellulose is essentially cardboard and has been used as a filtration media for a long time. Higher-end engine oil filters will use a synthetic fiber media that is better at filtering engine oil than cellulose.
Synthetic
Higher-end engine oil filters will be made using synthetic fibers as their filter element. Synthetic materials will typically provide a higher level of filtration compared to traditional cellulose or paper engine oil filters. Synthetic engine oil filters will typically cost more than engine oil filters comprised of cellulose.
Cellulose
Engine oil filters have been using cellulose or paper filters for a long time. They work well at removing contaminants from your oil but there have since been improvements in oil filtration technology. The nice thing about cellulose-based oil filters though is going to be the cost; they are going to be the cheapest to buy.
Blend
There are some engine oil filters that are made using both types of filter material and these are typically going to be the middle of the pack filters as far as price and performance. If I were you I would just spend the extra few bucks and go with a full synthetic oil filter.
Micro Glass
On higher-end engine oil filters, they will use synthetic micro-glass media to make their filters. Not all synthetic filters are made the same and micro-glass is the latest advancement in engine oil filter technology. It is currently used in royal purple oil filters.
Size and Model Number
Whenever you are looking at purchasing your next engine oil filter you would want to make sure that whatever engine oil filter you go with is going to fit your vehicle.
In this article, I will be recommending engine oil filters for one specific vehicle but you would want to make sure that you look up the engine oil filter and you pick the correct model number that would fit your specific vehicle. The prices may vary between the different filters by a bit but they will generally still be about the same prices across the different models.
An easy way to check to make sure that the engine oil filter you know will fit your car is to go to the oil filters manufacturer’s website and put in your vehicle info into their site. It will then tell you what model number of engine oil filter you need to get so that you can be sure it will fit your car.
Filtration Microns
Different engine oil filters will have different filtration ratings based on how they were made. The filters from the different manufacturers will be tested using efficiency tests. These tests would then show how well the filter did at removing dirt particles from the oil at certain micron sizes.
The most common efficiency test is called ISO 4548-12 and it tests how well the filter can filter 20-micron dirt particles during the 86 minute test. This is why when you see things like 99.6% efficiency rating on oil filters the efficiency at trapping different micron levels of dirt is what they are talking about.
Capacity
The larger the capacity of your oil filter the more it will be able to effectively filter your oil. Your engine manufacturer will decide how large your engine oil filter should be in order to effectively filter your engine’s oil.
The main factor in how large your oil filters capacity is the oil capacity of your engine, the more oil your engine can hold the larger the filter would need to be to keep up. Cars with smaller engines with therefore have smaller engine oil filters.
With all of that said not all engine oil filters will be made the same, each will be designed to hold a certain capacity of dirt and contaminants before they are meant to be replaced. There are extended life oil filters that are designed to hold larger capacities of contaminants than with a normal life oil filter. I personally think the larger the capacity of dirt and grime the oil filter can hold the better it will be able to protect your engine during the life of the oil.
A normal life oil filter may do a good job at catching contaminants but it may eventually get clogged up over the life of the change and may not be able to filter as well. A larger capacity or extended life oil filter should not have that problem as long as you still follow the recommended oil change interval from your vehicle manufacturer.
Construction
Engine oil filters are relatively cheap to make and purchase you will typically spend more in the engine oil that you use to do your oil change so it makes a bit of sense to go with an engine oil filter that is built with higher quality materials.
The cheap engine oil filters will be made with cheaper internal pieces than if you went with a more expensive oil filter. The more expensive the oil filter the higher the filtration abilities typically and the higher the materials used to make the oil filter.
If you want to check out the video below this guy cuts open a lot of the filters that I will list 
Easy Removal Features
If you’ve ever tried to remove an engine oil filter and struggled because it was tightened too much you may have been wishing there was an easy way to remove it. Some engine oil filters such as the ones that K & N make will come with a bolt head at the end of the oil filter.
That way you can easily attach a wrench to the oil filter to remove it without needing any special oil filter removal tools. This can be useful if you don’t have a special tool designed to remove engine oil filters.
Other engine oil filter manufacturers like FRAM will implement a non-slip surface to grab ahold of. This makes removing the old engine oil filter easy when it comes time to replace it with a new one. I still prefer the K & N oil filter with the bolt head as it is the easiest way to remove the filter if it’s been over tightened and can’t be removed by hand.
Helpful Tools For Engine Oil Filter Removal
If you have an engine oil filter that you can’t remove by hand and it doesn’t have a bolt head to assist with removal there are tools that you can buy to assist you with removing the filter. I’ve included links to Amazon below to the engine oil filter removal tool that I own as well as a set of oil filter pliers if you’d prefer going with a set of pliers instead of a specific tool.
Lisle 63600 Oil Filter Tool (Link to Amazon)
TEKTON 5866 12-Inch Oil Filter Pliers (Link to Amazon)
How Often Should You Change Your Engine Oil Filter?
Different vehicles are going to recommend different oil change intervals depending on what the manufacturer saw fit when designing the vehicle.
The traditional oil change interval has been 3,000 miles for a long period of time but do to the advances in oil technology and engine engineering those oil change intervals have started to become stretched farther and farther from 3,000 miles.
Most new cars are going to recommend an engine oil change interval of anywhere from 7,000 to 10,000 miles between oil changes. Some manufacturers recommend even longer oil change intervals than that at 15,000 miles.
There are new engine oils that are designed to stretch that change interval even further which are designed to be changed once per year or an annual oil change. I personally wouldn’t go over 10,000 miles on an oil change on my vehicles.
Even if the oil is designed to go farther in between oil changes there is no telling if the engine oil filter is designed to be used in the same manner and because you won’t be changing out your oil filter in between oil changes that could potentially cause issues as the engine oil filter may not be able to filter the oil effectively anymore.
If you change your own oil which I’m assuming that if you are reading this you probably are know how to do that or are planning on doing that then an oil change shouldn’t cost you too much. Even if you go with synthetic oil you can get 5 quarts of oil for around 25 bucks and an oil filter for 10-15.
Is going with an extended life oil really worth the chance of causing damage when you can typically change your own oil for less than the price to fill up your tank of gas? That choice is ultimately up to you.
One note about the engine oil filters in this list they are going to be higher-end engine oil filters so they may not be carried by your local auto parts store so you may need to order them online through Amazon. Most major parts stores are going to carry the most popular brands but they may not carry the specialty brands such as royal purple, or Amsoil.
The Importance of Clean Engine Oil
If you never changed your engine oil or engine oil filter then eventually most of the engine oil would turn to sludge and eventually lock up your engine. As long as you go by your manufacturers recommended change intervals for your engine oil and engine oil filter then you should be fine as far as sludge buildup is concerned.
In Conclusion
There are a lot of different engine oil filters that you can choose from but hopefully this engine oil filter buying guide has given you more useful information so that you can make a more informed buying decision.
If you are planning on using an extended life oil then you would want to make sure that you are also getting an extended life oil filter in combination. Whichever engine oil filter you end up deciding to go with you won’t be making any mistakes by going with the ones I’ve listed in this guide.