Oil Filters - more than you ever wanted to know

BlackBird wrote: it's the same with batteries too. only a few manufacturers that get rebranded. I bought an advance auto platinum battery because its made by odyssey.

I read somewhere that the only lead-acid battery manufacturer left in US of A is Exide, located somewhere near Tri-cities Tennessee.  Nearly every lead acid battery sold in US for automotive use is an Exide battery.  I can't cite the article, its escaped my memory....

Rebadging is pretty much the norm in a lot of products we buy.

http://minimopar.knizefamily.net/oilfilters/opinions.html

Interesting reading.  I had long suspected that there were only a few manufacturers making all the filters under different names.  Turns out that this guy's investigations agree with my hunch.

I was also surprised to learn that Napa filters are just a Dana/Wix with special paint/labeling.  Its really disturbing when they have two grades of filter, one which is ostensibly higher quality/more expensive, and there is no discernible difference between the two except the paint on the can.

If you dont want to take the time to read the whole series of web pages, here's the scoop - this guy is an an electrical engineer who set out to determine which filter was best for his various cars.  Apparently it set him on a multiyear quest to buy every filter for the engines he had, pull them apart, make some observations and measurements and comparisons.  In the course of this, over 9 years, he compiled a whole lot of evidence indicating that many of our strong brand-name-recognition filters (like Fram) are no different than some other less known brands, because they are all manufactured by just a few entities.  There are a few outliers in there, tho....like the Mahle filters which Porsche uses...he really seemed enamored of those.