brybo86

This is why Purolator filters have earned the name "Tearolator" since 2011.
Original post https://bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ub...pics/4409169/1

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Hello folks, first post here. My friends call me Gordy, and I spent 40 years at Purolator's factory in Fayetteville NC. I was forcibly retired last year (but that's another story.) I have been waiting for my one-year silence clause to expire before I started posting, but I have been lurking for many years. My son was a poster here going back to the beginning, and he always encouraged me to join up even though I was bound not to divulge any info regarding the company I worked for.

The biggest issue I have seen coming up in these boards have been over the tear in the pleating in Purolator media. Yes, this is a known problem. No, it's not considered enough of a problem for M+H to address, though if FoMoCo decides to take their contract elsewhere, it may finally dawn on the bigwigs that they did too little too late.

Here's what happened:

In the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s quality control in our little plant was the finest in the world. And I say that not because I worked there for so long but because it really was that good. We did off-the-shelf quality checks and comparisons for all the commercially available brands to see what they were doing right, what we were doing wrong, and how we could produce a better filter. By the 1980s we didn't even bother checking Fram filters anymore, they were pretty much the bottom-barrel manufacturer. I see that you guys have coined a term calling it the Orange Can of Death which is funny, because we at Purolator called them little orange garbage cans.

Purolator felt its closest competitor in quality was Wix. In business, Purolator always attempted to emulate Champion Labs in their ability to secure so much private label branding. So business-wise, our only competitor was Champ, and construction/QC, it was Wix. Fram never registered on Purolator's radar.

While Purolator was never the best paying place to work, you could make a living there during the 60s/70s. Fayetteville NC is a military town and everything is dependent on Fort Bragg. From the mid 70s onward, Purolator wages continuously dropped due to the favorable economic conditions in Fayetteville. There were SO SO many returning GIs getting over Vietnam, and their families, that there was something like a 5,000/1 job ratio, meaning for every one job in town, you had 5,000 qualified individuals looking for work.

Minimum wage when I started was 1.40/hr and Purolator paid 3.00 an hour for an entry level line worker. Today, this would be 15.00/hr minimum to start if they kept their formula of paying slightly over double minimum wage for workers. This started changing in the late 70s, and finally wages dropped to just slightly above minimum wage. When my son started in the late 90s, minimum wage was 5.15 and Purolator paid 6.00 per hour. This was still better than Converse or Black & Decker, who only paid minimum wage shortly before packing up and heading to Mexico and China.

But old timers like me were able to salvage our earnings growth due to a 1982 union scare. Purolator was so afraid of unionization that they sat down and bargained with all LT workers that had been there over 8 years. Basically the downward spiral in pay wouldn't effect us, we would still get our 0.25 raise per year. So after 40 years, my quarter a year raise equaled $10/hr over base pay, which came to 17.50. Trust me, there were VERY few people making 17.50/hr at Purolator.

Fast Forward to the early 2000s and Purolator so wanted a piece of the Champ Labs private label pie that Mann +Hummel started courting us promising big opportunities with German manufacturers like BMW, Benz, Bosch, etc. A lot of people believe that Mann + Hummel took over in 2013 but M+H had been around since 2006 as a silent partner/backer. When they started implementing machinery changes in 2011, this was pretty much the end of Purolator's stellar reputation for quality.

Let me draw a better picture of the difference between 1991 and 2011. In 1991, for each shift and each section of plant, you had 16 line leads and 16 QC techs monitoring output. That's 32 sets of eyes making sure machinery was properly calibrated, tools were sharp and functional, material was prime, and the workers were assembling it correctly.

Mann + Hummel took one look at this and said "nein!" This was NOT how they did things in Germany. Too many idle people walking around getting paid. So in 2011, the 16 line leads and 16 QC techs were whittled down to 15 service chiefs. They did double and triple duty of both line lead and QC tech, and a bit of machinery servicing. 200 long-time, long term hard working people were given the axe because they were not needed. 15 men doing the work of 31.

Mann + Hummel answered the questions of "how will quality be controlled" with "quality will be controlled because we are Mann + Hummel, and our employees love their jobs so well that they will be their own QC techs." Well... maybe in Germany where the average line worker is making $20/hr, but not in backwater Fayetteville NC where they were making minimum wage.

M+H's next big idea was that payroll had too many line workers, so they cut down staff by 40% and replaced them with temp agency workers making minimum wage and zero benefits. Nobody knew who anyone was. Nobody knew who was supposed to be running the line. Nobody cared when machinery broke down; it gave them 5 minutes to not have to work like a madman. Morale was at an alltime low and production was higher than it ever had been, but the quality of the finished product didn't matter.

This is why the filter media tears on ALL Purolator filters manufactured after 2011:

-The pleater machine, which stamps out the ridges in the pleats before the workers assemble it into the housing, used to be serviced every two hours.

-At the beginning of a 10 hour shift, the blades on the pleater were sharpened then honed so that they wouldn't cut through the media too deeply

-The QC tech would stop the line after 120 minutes, check the edge of the pleater with a micrometer, re-sharpen if needed, and hone the edge

-This guaranteed that the depth of the crease in the media was the same at the beginning of the shift as it was toward the end

-When M+H cut back the QC staff, their compromise was to only sharpen and hone the blade at the beginning of the shift.

-Since there would be no mid-shift calibration taking place, the Lead would have to sharpen the blade too finely so that by the end of the shift, it would still be creasing the correct diameter.

-The obvious result of having a blade at the beginning of the shift which was much too sharp is that all the media that is pleated during the first half of the shift is cut too deeply, which causes the media to tear during or after assembly. After the blade dulls a bit, it works fine.

This was first brought to the attention of Purolator in 2011. Purolator, and not M+H, considered this a major blow to overall integrity of the filter, but M+H countered with data showing that this was insignificant and saved the company half a million a year. So Purolator tried band-aiding the problem. They brought out this transparent sleeve that supposedly kept the blade from being too sharp at the beginning of shift, and this seemed to work OK. After the buyout was finished in 2013, those sleeves came off and once again the media was pleated too sharply.

The sad thing about this was that I had been using, recommending, giving away and otherwise pied-pipering Purolator filters since 1966, even more-so after I was elected to quality engineering in 1972. After 2013, I went down to Napa and purchased two Wix filters, cut one open, inspected it, stress tested the pleats, played around with the drainback valve, and satisfied my curiosity. My vehicles all run Wix filters now, except for my Fords which use a stash of 2008-era FL2005 Motorcrafts that I began hoarding after we stopped production on that model.

So it's bittersweet for me to have to share this story, but I hope that it helps folks understand why Purolators became Tearolators and why the best filter in the industry ended up something that I wouldn't run if you handed them to me. Please feel free to ask any questions that you may have and I'll be happy to answer them if I can!

fixmiester

Extremely detailed and well composed, but as a veteran engineer/manager involved in overseeing QA, Change Management, Process Improvement, and Program Management for a variety of industries spanning over forty years, I have to say "Yep, that's how the real world works, especially since globalization." In a free market, the consumers determine their own AQL, based on their own value proposition. Whatever meets their needs, at the lowest cost, gets their business. For instance, I've been working on all of my cars since I was fifteen years old. I'm guilty of abusing many engines during my younger years with over-reving past redline, exceeding turbo boost and waste gate settings, and going waaay too fast at times. To my knowledge, I've never had an oil filter fail. I've never bought expensive filters, and apparently have been courting disaster by using Fram for many years, even​ on my LS!
I know it's tough for most of us to accept change in our work environment, but manufacturing processes, materials selection, automation, and particularly worker productivity are now being scrutinized like never before. Ironically, I was also impacted by that, but now, I am enjoying retirement doing whatever​ I want. Don't get me wrong; Quality IS important, but the acceptable quality level is ultimately determined by the consumer (and/or Regulatory agencies).

Losiracer2

Wow, thanks for the knowledge. I always wonder the things I read and if they really are true or if its just marketing on the box.

My last oil change on my Accord I went with a Purolator Synthetic media filter. Definitely not bottom end, I think it's the best one they made. On my Lexus I use nothing but OEM since they're typically a buck or two more for an exact fit, high quality Japanese made product that I know will not fail.

I always try different models of filters on my Accord since I've got an H22 VTEC engine that burns through oil so quickly, so I have to add oil every 1500 miles anyways. I was making that same decision a few months back on whether to add a WIX or Purolator, I went with the Purolator since it was on special with a 5qt jug of Valvoline Synthetic. Before that, I used to use the Honda OEM filters until I found out they were made by Fram. A bit earlier, they were made in Canada by Filtech so I knew those were the better products. But since then its been a different filter almost every time.

dicer

Yeah Purolator and wix were the best, aren't they all manufacturing in Mexico now? I thought that's what I saw on a Purolator box the last time I looked.
Nowadays it likely doesn't matter what brand you choose they are all likely to introduce lots of nice metal particles into the oil out of the box, from lack of cleanliness, machining the threads and crimping the cases etc. Its not the same world of car parts we had 30 plus years ago. Its over worked underpaid I don't give a hoot working folks these days, can't blame em with the A__ H___ management these days, hmmm guess we had that in the old days too.

YODAONE

The Corporate Mother Does Not Love....

For the most part I am not an advocate of aftermarket parts for Lexus...

I like the Toyota branded oil and air filters.

While your informatiom underscores typical aftermarket mentality, perhaps you could apply your knowledge and expertise to generate a comparison report on oil filters available for Lexus vehicles..here the LS400.

Oil filters are so misunderstood that advocates without 1% or your QC expertise post opinions on these forums...

It sounds like you could do this blindfolded, backwards and in your sleep.

Perhaps you contact Consumer Reports to assist you in this regard.

Would also appreciate learning what you know about this Toyota filter media.




Am informed it was superior to pleated paper..

Apparently it is still produced in Japan, but is no longer available from Toyota or Lexus in North America.

Different accounts as to why, but cost seems to be a factor.

brybo86

And apparently the original poster made that entire post up.... sad.

Purolator does have a long history of torn media since around 2011 , nearly every cut open purolator filter on bitog is torn in the exact same spot.