Featured Test shows why you need to change oil often, if you use Toyota oil filters

We all have our ideas. I think I already explained why it makes all the difference, the rate. The real test talks about the rate they use.
If there isn’t the money, then there is the inaccurate result. It has to mimic the actual situation or it’s worthless. Them to not know what a combo bypass is in the delco made me lose faith in what they say. They even slapped a face like Delco made a mistake. There were a couple more things like that.

 

The video was adding 1.1g of dust in 250mL of oil over a minute to the reservoir tank of the test rig at a time. The dust was well mixed with the oil before adding; no clumps to prematurely clog the filter.

The goal is to measure how well the filter works under standardized conditions to allow repeatable results that can be compared. Not a test of how well the filter works on a car in service. That introduces a whole bunch of other variables. The rate that particles would need to be added will vary with the engine model and how it is operated.

An official lab isn't going to run a test rig for days to simulate a thousand miles driving when the results wanted are what particle sizes are trapped by the filter, and its capacity before failing.

 

One minute isn’t like an engine sees. It sees 1.1 gram over probably 20 hours, evenly metered. The official lab has to do something remotely close to average conditions. Most cars now run clean, good air filter, more or less sealed intake system.

 

It is into the reservoir tank, not directly injected to the line going to the filter. There is further dilution going on before the dust reaches the filter. The validation testing for the official test rig runs for just an hour.

The official lab does not have run something close to average conditions. The fact the official test is using that special oil is evidence of this. Oil in an operating engine is at 100C. There are practical and safety considerations in running test equipment at those temperatures. Then there is considerations for the test results as those temps could create more particles within the fluid. Some they use a fluid that is of the same viscosity at 40C as motor oil at 100C.

If the goal was to mimic exactly what is going on in the engine, they would be using dust alone. There would also be a liquid or gel that is insoluable to the oil added. That is what motor oil is breaking down into over engine operation, and is likely what is mostly clogging up the filter. Mixing that to provide a set spread of particle sizes would be impossible.

The test just needs to give repeat results of what the filter is capable of to allow selection by the engineers for the specific engine. They'll know the contamination and oil degradation rates for the engine from other testing. The EPA fuel economy testing in no way mimics current drive patterns, but the results allow direct comparison of different cars.

The testing done by the video also only covers one part of twelve in the ISO filter testing.