Oil Filters - Genuine Vs Aftermarket

[oilman]

We sell a few 'genuine' filters for certain cars (Honda, Mitsubishi, Subaru and Nissan as our supplier stocks those), but they aren't made by the car manufacturer, they are made by a filter company and labelled as an OEM part. Owners of certain cars often seem to want a OEM branded filter for some reason and we'll sell it to them if that's what they want, but I'd rather sell someone a Mahle/UFI/K&N as they are often better value and just as good (or even the same filter). When we used to deal with UFI, we've had filters in Ford boxes turn up, with a label with the UFI reference on them as they had run out of the UFI labelled version.

Cheers

Tim

[lozz]

Ithink the reason why people go for ' Oem filters is because of all the horror stories they see
On the www.

I'wouid just avoid Whitebox trash and them 'crossland branded things.

[oilman]

Hi

I think you're right, but it's like anything really, buy the cheapest option from a company that you've never heard of and the chances are you'll get rubbish. Buy something from a reputable company and while it might be half the price of the OEM part, it will be fine.

Cheers

Tim

[lozz]

Thanks for your input.

I've just recently bought a ' service kit off ebay ..for a Mondeo tdci
It claims to be OEM.
The oil is manniol Ford/Volvo logo.
4+1 litre bottles. So all good there..

The filters fuel & oil filter is branded. ( GDL)
Am iright thinking these are best fitted in the wheelie bin?

I've never heard of ( GDL)

[steve_earwig]

Graduate Diploma in Law? Never heard of them but that's not to say they're not exactly the same thing as everything else...

[lozz]

Graduate Diploma in Law? Never heard of them but that's not to say they're not exactly the same thing as everything else...

Hi.
That's what my Google search ' pinged up too

Just had another..look

And it's. Ghai Distributors Ltd.

Fuel filter box says: gf4153 OEM quality.
Equivalent to:
H20313. EFF120 . sp1263.

Ah well... In the bin it goes.

[oilman]

Hi

I've just tried to look at their website, but most of the links don't work. As I've not heard of them before and can't see much about them, I'd be a bit wary. If I hadn't heard of them, but there were a lot of reviews around saying that they are brilliant, then they should be fine. The lack of info puts me off.

Cheers

Tim

[lozz]

Thanks Tim.

Iwas going to bin them.but iremberd the college..iwill hand them over to them
So nowt lost..

Iwill order some ' from your company. ( ishouid of done that in first place )

Thanks for your input.

[oilman]

Glad to have helped out.

Cheers

Tim

[binnzy]

just a quick anecdote, I was doing subcontract work at champion spark plugs in Merseyside, I was quite surprised watching them being made, at the end of the line they fall into small skips which then go to different printing stations, some printed "genuine Bosch" some printed champion
Next one was bosal exhaust systems in Preston, making exhausts for many models of car, the welders put a pipe in a jig then a silencer box then another pipe and weld them together, a batch stamped bosal and another batch stamped range rover, same pipes same jigs just different markings, I guess the ones marked Range Rover went to the dealers and the ones marked bosal went to motor factors.

[oilman]

Denso spark plugs are a bit like that. Most are sold as Denso, others have HKS printed on them and are sold for about 4 times the price.

Cheers

Tim

[steve_earwig]

...at the end of the line they fall into small skips which then go to different printing stations, some printed "genuine Bosch" some printed champion
... a batch stamped bosal and another batch stamped range rover...

And you just know one is going to be a lot more expensive than the other. I suspect the exhausts marked "Range Rover" will be extortionate too.

I think this sort of stuff is just the tip of the iceberg and we're getting ripped off left, right and centre, not just for car parts either. I know car, bike, washing machine etc. manufacturers have to make a profit, they used to do it by selling cars etc. but it seems like they now make most of their profits selling the parts to keep the cars going, another way of driving down purchase prices and remaining competitive.

It's just like computer printers, I think it was Douglas Adams that pointed out that HP, Epsom etc. used to sell printers and ink as a sideline, now they sell ink and also the printers to keep using it up. And they go to great lengths to make sure you buy their expensive ink for their printers.

[oilman]

One thing you will hear about with oil is that Castrol etc make oils for other companies, like Halfords, Ford, BMW etc. Yes, they do, but it's a bit irrelevant who makes the own brand oils as they are made to different requirements to the oil companies own products. We often hear that the Halfords oil is Castrol Edge or Castrol Magnatec as it's made in the same place, but it's made in different runs. A simple indicator of the differences are the specs the oil meets - the Magnatec A5 is Castrol's oil for 'normal' Fords and that meets the Ford 913D spec, the Halfords Ford oil only meets the earlier 913C spec.

As well as differences in the specs, the oils might be different to what they say on the label. Quality control affects the price and quality, the more samples are tested during production, the more it costs, but the more likely it is to be what it says on the label. Some cheap oils have been found to be well out of grade (one of the worst I've heard of was something that was supposed to be a 5w-40 was actually a 20w-40).

Actual manufacturer approvals can cost a lot of money and that adds to the price of an oil, so a lot of manufacturers sell oils as 'meets the requirements of XXXX' or 'Can be used where XXXX is specified'. You then have to trust the oil manufacturer that the oil is actually suitable for the application, rather than the oil being approved. Don't risk that with cars under warranty, pretty much all manufacturers will void a warranty if the wrong oil is used. Some dealerships are testing the oil before they look at engine issues now, as if the oil is incorrect, they may be able to get out of doing the work.

Another way of affecting the price of an oil is to alter the additive package.

http://www.opieoils.co.uk/pdfs/tech-art ... ackage.pdf

The additive pack is a very important part of the oil and can greatly affect the oils properties, but it can be reduced in quality or quantity to reduce the production costs. That can mean that the oil will not last as long or work as well.

I would say as long as you go for a reputable oil there is nothing to worry about, but going for cheaper options can result in less protection unless you shop carefully.

Cheers

Tim

[Welly]

I buy Fuchs oil religiously for my Volvo, it gets driven hard so I'm happy to use (arguably) the best oil on the market. Oil + Filters costs me about £70.00.

[highlander]

It's just like computer printers, I think it was Douglas Adams that pointed out that HP, Epsom etc. used to sell printers and ink as a sideline, now they sell ink and also the printers to keep using it up. And they go to great lengths to make sure you buy their expensive ink for their printers.

I got bitten by this one - hard - about 10 years ago. I bought a Lexmark all-in-one inkjet printer from my local supermarket for the princely sum of £40. Bargain!

At the time, I believe that Lexmark only included ink cartridges that were, at best, around half full. They also had hardware built into the cartridges that track the ink level, and wouldn't allow you to reset it - meaning if you could fill up the tanks with fresh ink, the cartridge would still report to the printer that it was empty. Thus forcing you to buy new cartridges. A set of new, full, cartridges for this printer was £45. I was absolutely outraged, and never replaced the ink. I still have the printer somewhere (the scanner part was actually decent, but I guarantee if I plugged that sucker in now, there'd be no drivers for modern versions of Windows).

In the end, I bought a 2nd hand Canon black-and-white laser printer off eBay for £40. The partly-used toner cartridge that came with it lasted AGES, and I was able to get it refilled at somewhere like Cartridge World for about £20. I only stopped using that printer because the next version of Windows no longer included support for the legacy "Windows Printing System" that the Canon's driver was based on. So it became obsolete.

I replaced it with a used HP LaserJet 1130n off eBay, again for about £40. Great thing about HP LaserJets is that every version of Windows seems to ship with a compatible driver built-in. You can still use ancient LaserJet 4 printers with Windows 10, it's great. Again, the supplied part-used toner cartridge lasted ages, and the only reason I stopped using that printer was because it eventually broke - total mechanical failure. Gutted, because it's a really good quality home-office printer (and it had a built-in network print server, so I didn't need to have my PC on in order for other PCs in my house to be able to print to it).

I'm now using an HP DeskJet 5550 colour printer that my Mum used to have - and it's out of ink, and new ink cartridges for it come to about £50 for both the black and the CMYK colour cartridges as a set. I'm thinking of trawling eBay for another compact 2nd hand laser printer.


As a side-note, I remember my brother telling me that his mate worked at a shortbread factory. The production line ended with shortbread in tins - but the last phase was to apply the stickers to the tin. Amongst their clients were various supermarkets, plus Harrods. It was literally the same stuff, just with different branding.

My favourite breakfast cereal is probably Kellogg's Crunchy Nut Cornflakes. The price of breakfast cereal seems to me to have shot up faster than most other foodstuffs. So I've occasionally tried supermarket own-brand alternatives. I've yet to find one that tastes the same as Crunchy Nut. Nicest is probably Tesco's own brand stuff, but it seems to have a lot more honey in it - like there's too much sugar. Slightly odd aftertaste, too. Shame, because it's about half the price usually.

Supermarket own-brand Coke / Irn Bru alternatives are universally awful, and taste nothing like the real deal.