I just watched a video where the owner of a shop was swapping out ALL of his inventory of napa gold oil filters for wix and microguard oil filters. I'm assuming that it's a relatively new video. He said that the napa gold filters are now made in China and they made a slight design change to the inside effectively rendering them very low quality. He showed the insides of all 3 filters (unused) and there is a difference. Is this true? Has anyone seen or heard of this before? Is this old news that I'm just hearing about now? Keith
https://www.v8buick.com/index.php?threads/wix-51258-now-made-in.392127/ https://www.v8buick.com/index.php?threads/wix-filters.382797/
I bought 2 cases of Napa gold and both the box and filters were labeled made in USA. I heard they are moving manufacturing off shore
The made in China NAPA Gold filters are junk. They used to be the recommended filter on another forum that I am on but not since they moved production to China.
If you feel fine for initial start up for 10 seconds with no oil pressure you good to go ! Drain back valve does not work.
Gauge shows oil pressure at start up but I do get some lifter noise for 5-10 seconds. I thought the American made filters were the last of the good ones. Maybe not
Wix got bought by Mann Hummel in 2016. Slowly production of many part #'s moved overseas. Wix availability during and after the Covid episode was spotty and random. Napa has moved away from Wix and now uses Baldwin. About 2/3 of what I see is overseas made now (I work at a Napa). My last couple of Wix/Napa 1258's I have used had no issues (USA made), the ones at our store are still USA. Can't say if they're the same quality. We don't sell many of those but we have them in stock because of me and a couple of friends. I can say the heavy duty truck filters have changed a lot from Wix to Baldwin. The Wix (3960XE) fuel filters had a steel cage around the filter. The new Balwin ones are cardboard. One of our customers does not like them as they seem to dissolve over time. If we get a new type Napa 1258 I can get one and cut it open and compare to a Wix USA one.
Last year when I changed the oil in my stage 1 to Joe Gibbs hot rod Oil, I also tried the Napa gold filter for the first time because I always use the pH 24 GM filter which we can’t get no more. I filled the oil filter up with oil started the car no oil pressure lifters were rattling then it came up. I tried it for a second time to verify it did the same thing, I put the GM filter back on started up and everything was fine. I did a drain back test put oil in the filter, turned it upside down with my thumb in the center hole and nothing but oil came out of all the holes.
Here is what Bob Ortalani had to say about oil filters. I posted I had used the OEM Honda oil filter for my first oil change on my 2023 Honda Accord Hybrid. He recommended I stick with the Honda filter. Easy enough for me to do.
Yup....went thru a whole racing season with WIX thinking motor on the way out due to slow priming. Now with Fram HP5 it jumps right up.
From what I read Baldwin oil filter seem to be a good choice. They’re already red. Maybe that’s a sign.
The way I look at it, most anti-drainbacks will fail with the higher pressures we run so running a lower restriction filter like K&P (no anti drainback), Fram racing or KN at least lets the oil move thru and get where it needs to be. That said, I wish the bozos who do oil filter reviews would do more than cut them apart and make useless judgements and actually test the anti-drainback "valves" AFTER they have been run with high pressure.
Makes sense to me I used a dip stick heater during the winter to keep the oil warmer. When it warmed up outside I pulled the heater out, put the regular dipstick in and pulled it out and oil was warm. So I am leaving it in there to see if the oil pressure comes up faster with warm oil. The pressure came quick when I used the drill to prime engine and I have EDM lifters. I used to use the race Fram filter little bigger than normal, till everyone long time ago said Fram was junk and started to use Wix filter.
Becareful and do your homework using filters branded as racing.........wix for example flows alot more oil through the racing filters than the regular series.....but clearly states on website when you look at size of crap its taking out of the oil its like 50 micron not like 10. So more flow less filtering. And we all know if they claim down to 10 micron in reality it means the grab like mostly 100 microns but do get a few smaller chuncks so now we can claim "down to".........so if the same company doing the same test is now saying down 50 not 10.......that relates to not filtering much just letting oil flow through so they can advertise a high flow rate. For race engines that need more flow and have less run time and alot of oil changes not bad......but to put it on your street car and go 5k, maybe not the wisest choice
When stock filters bypass when clogged or cold start ZERO filtering going on. I'd rather have bigger micron filtering and have it happening more of the time.
Heck most of the time in all these motors I would bet a majority ofvthe oil is running through the bypass on most motors. Take your gen5 or 6 bbc. The main bypass is set to open at only 11 psi......you can pit s 30psi in there, but once it opens you co Stanly running a decent amount of oil straight through bypass
It’s pretty bad when the anti-drain back valve fails at first install it. Regardless of what oil pressure you have.
