Getting the Best Oil Filter For Your Car

Any car owner that actually cares the least bit about their vehicle's performance and general maintenance absolutely must be concerned about the oil that they have got circulating in their engine. Engine oil is among the most critical components when it comes to preserving the condition of your car as a whole, and there are two basic considerations to be kept in mind here: first of all, the quality of the engine you pour into your engine, and secondly, the quality of the oil filter that you're using in your engine. Not only will you want to ensure that you are using the best quality engine oil, but also that you are using the best filter possible as well in order to keep your car going just the way you would like.

Of course, just as with any kind of spare auto part out there on the market, car owners can get a little confused and frustrated when it comes time to actually buying their oil filter-much less the best filter available! It's important to remember that your filter needs to perform two basic functions before any and all other things: it needs to be able to trap the dirt floating around in the oil you've got circulating in your engine, and furthermore it needs to be able to retain that dirt as much as possible. In order to truly be able to say that you are using the best oil filter possible for your engine, you need to actually install one that achieves the best possible levels of efficiency in both of these areas.

While average oil filters may not have dirt trapping capabilities of much more than 80% for particles that exceed 20 microns in size, the highest performance filters on the market are able to exceed 99% efficiency for particles of dirt of the same size or even smaller. That's because the best oil filters available don't only use paper fibers to trap dirt particles, but use other kinds of synthetic and composite materials that have much tinier fibers that fill in the spaces left between the paper fibers themselves (such as fiber glass and cellulose). Recent developments have led to highly engineered cellulose that achieves a degree of precision meshing that was previously unheard of for oil filters, and for the best oil filter you need to make sure you've got one that includes these sorts of new developments.

Also keep in mind that such issues as total surface area and general air flow capabilities will influence your oil filter's performance within the engine to a great extent. The greater surface area a filter has, logically the greater its filtration and dirt retention capabilities will be; on the other hand, the filter must include certain features that allow air flow as well as oil flow levels to remain as high as possible, an issue which is also dealt with by changing out filters at the proper time/mileage interval, which will vary depending on what kind of filter and oil you use of course.