Rotax 912 oil filter. Reputable suppliers?

[onetrack]

All filter manufacturing is nearly always done by independent filter manufacturers. Very few OEM companies manufacture their own filters. Cummins is one of the few, they own Fleetguard, which is a leading global filter manufacturer.

To set up a filter manufacturing facility is a sizeable expense that OEM's will not normally involve themselves in, it's easier and simpler for them to seek out a major filter manufacturer, and get their filters made by that filter producer.

The OEM's merely submit the specifications to the filter manufacturer, and the filter manufacturer simply produces a filter to meet those specs - and brands it accordingly. 

 

If the OEM is good, they keep a careful check on the filter quality being supplied, as well as relying on the filter manufacturers QC's. The OEM's might do random checks of quality, or they may have their own testing facilities.

Ryco no longer manufacture filters in Australia, they've had all their filters made in China since 2005. Ryco spent $3M here in 2013 on "filter supply facilities" - but that only involved setting up a big office, a lab, and filter testing facilities.

 

There are major filter manufacturers in all the more populous countries - China, Europe, the U.S., Thailand, Sth Korea, and Indonesia - and still the odd one left in Japan. Mann & Hummel are the biggest filter manufacturer in Europe. Sakura, originally Japanese, moved to Indonesia and went into JV with the Indonesians. Donaldson are the third biggest filter manufacturer. Sofegi, an Italian company, is the worlds 4th biggest filter manufacturer.

Sakura Indonesia produce 8,000,000 filters a MONTH, so you can get an idea of the size of the filter market, from that level of production just from one manufacturer.

 

Global operators such as Denso, Donaldson, Bosch, Wix, Toyota, etc., get their filters made anywhere - as with nearly all their products. The amount of Bosch stuff made in China now is incredible.

There are probably only about 20 main (well-known) filter manufacturing companies - but there are probably 200 filter brands. The 20 main manufacturers manufacture those other 180 brands.

There's probably 20 or 30 major filter manufacturing facilities in China, but only a few of them set up by global operators - and most of these global brand name factories are Joint Ventures with Chinese companies, anyway.

 

There are quite a number of filter examination videos on YooToob - but I've yet to come across one that does a very refined comparison. Most of the people doing these videos simply do a visual examination of the cut-open filter.

A few do "comparison" filter examinations, and they still don't prove much. One of the interesting points to come out of one of these videos was the Cooper-Wesfil filter out of China, that is utilising a standard-size filter canister, across multiple filters.

Any difference in length between canister and housing was made up with a thicker anti-drainback valve - which is usually just a big silicon rubber washer.

 

Few of these videos examined in technical detail, the strength of the filter medium (against collapse when loaded up with contaminants), the quality and quantity of the glue holding the filter medium, and the thickness of the metals.

Then there's the spring strength measurements needed, to determine at what pressure a bypass valve releases. I saw no-one doing this. The bloke doing the Cooper-Wesfil filter examination did examine the filter media through a microscope, and this showed up holes in the filter media - thus making any claimed micron-level of filtering, a pretty pointless exercise. The Cooper-Wesfil filter obviously has poor filtering ability.

 

The basic design of all filters is pretty much the same, it's the subtle features of the internals that start to make the difference between a good filter and less-than-satisfactory filter, and some of these differences only show up after the filter has been in use for some time. Collapsed filters (internally) due to inadequate filter media strength seems to feature large in many complaints - and an internally collapsed filter can starve engine components of adequate oil supply.

 

Edited September 6, 2023 by onetrack

[danny_galaga]

1 hour ago, facthunter said:

So do lots of others. .  Nev

Goodo.

[facthunter]

 Anti drain back is fairly recent.  It's only a rubber like diaphragm which could easily have a slow leak. The bypass arrangement by passes all oil including any  gunk that's in  the  oil. Better dirty oil than no oil is the logic.. My Cont 16 F had a fine brass gauze mesh that  you just remove and clean now and again. Sams as the Peugeot  203 had in principle.  Nev. 

[danny_galaga]

Got the filter today. Made in Italy.

[onetrack]

More than likely manufactured by Sogefi. Sogefi's own filter brands are FRAM, Coopers/FIAMM, Purflux, SogefiPro and Tecnocar. And of course, they would manufacture filters for a large number of European automotive and engine manufacturers.

 

https://www.sogefigroup.com/en/brands/brands.html

 

They sell filters in 18 countries and have 37 manufacturing facilities globally - including China, of course. 

 

https://www.sogefigroup.com/en/sogefi-group/worldwide-presence.html

[facthunter]

The User- manufacturer of the engine may specify what they want to the supplier. IF ROtax do that and recommend no other be used. Rotax are definitely taking responsibility for it particularly with a VH  designated motor in a VH plane. It has the status of a "genuine" part.   Nev