Oil filter recommendation since TRD filter discontinued

Wow, the Amsoil filter is rated #1. Imagine that!!!

 

I’m sticking with OEM filters. They are priced right and I buy 4 or 5 at a time from the dealer. Not going to mention my oil brand, don’t want to start an oil thread debate, lol.

 

No it’s #2

 

I heard you can put a used filter in the microwave and if it sparks then you know there is metal shavings in the oil

 

Side effects may include smelly kitchen, tripped circuit breaker, and divorce.

 

I have never heard that before but I can see how that would work with the element filters.

 

Totally agree. I get the feeling that people think that every drop is ran through this filter continually removing every speck of particles.

 

Explain to me why this chart has any relevance at all.

 

I asked him and nothing but crickets. Maybe you can share what convinced you that this is the case?

 

There are many tests done by 3rd parties with scientific data that shows there are clear differences between filters.
If you go to the parts store to choose a filter and did so based on speculation then you are not making a good decision IMO.
With a little bit of reading and research you can find that some of the filters do a better job than others
So why not purchase a top 5 filter or a top 10?
Why purchase a filter that ranks at #16 or #18 because you’ve always used that filter??
No matter whose list you read about all of these filters stay in about the same place.
Amsoil is always top 3 or 4 but not readily available
Purolator is the same but can be found locally
The top Fram is super easy to get and priced better
So why buy a Toyota filter because it’s cheap?
If price is your only concern there are better alternatives for the same money.
And if you truly don’t care don’t take the time to read anything and throw any filter in there and go, but I paid too much for my truck to not make more of an educated decision when I do service to any of my vehicles.

 

My thought is over filtration reduces oil flow which can cause oil starvation and damage your engine.

 

This has been solved for probably 50 years with a bypass valve in the filter. And the only way it would even reach the threshold of oil bypass is high throttle, high flow and a dirty filter

 

The bypass valve is a safety mechanism that allows oil to bypass the filter and flow directly to the engine when the filter becomes too clogged or over filtration which reduces oil flow. As long as you have a filter that flows well with clean oil the bypass valve will never open. You are way overthinking oil filters just change your oil on time and replace the filter with a OEM filter.

 

I see a lot of picky drivers but not many picky toyota engines. These things will run on whatever. That's the point of a everyday general use vehicle.

Your truck is not special
Your truck is not a beautiful and unique snowflake
It is the same decaying organic matter as everything else

 

I think its a safe bet that bro doesn't work in Marketing.

 

20+ years as a technician

 

I've never heard of Toyota oil filter failure, but I have heard about oil sludge due to lack of oil change.

 

So "feelings"

 

Pick the same OEM Toyota oil filter that came on the truck that was on it from the factory assembly-line and call it a day.

Over a quarter of a million Toyota vehicles came with some flavor of one in 2024, and I don't remember reading about any catastrophic mass failure reports at Toyota related to oil filters on their engines. Not even here on TacomaWorld.

Approximately 1-million vehicles with oil-filters since 2021: I think that would have made the news:

https://pressroom.toyota.com/toyota-motor-north-america-reports-2024-u-s-sales-results/

 

I don't have any data to support my thought process either way. I want to believe the sky is green, and most here are too busy hunting for empirical evidence that it's blue. I don't care if I'm right or wrong to the rest of the world, it's just where my thought process has led me.

A lot of it boils down to basic physics for me.

Placing any material in the way of the flow of a liquid, and the liquid will resist going through it. That makes for less flow after the medium. That leaves two options. Pressurize that liquid enough, it will go through the medium or boil itself off. Or there's the bypass valve that opens up once pressure gets to be too much.

These Trucks aren't vaporizing their oil supply, no one's looking into adding oil cooler capacity, or adding misters to the existing coolers to increase the skin effect, so ultra high pressures and heat also get taken out as potentials. That leaves two options. Either the filter medium isn't a very fine filter-- to reduce restrictions, or the bypass valve is supplementing the overall system pressure.

That's what leaves me to suspect that for every 100% of oil that runs through the oil filter, 50% or more could be bypassing every 'rotation'. Meaning that only part of the oil is filtered at any given time. But if it takes 5 minutes to fully cycle through, it's still very feasible that 100% of the oil is filtered over the course of a 30 minute drive, just not all in one instance.

Typical physics easily shows that a good filter has terrible flow. While a terrible filter has excellent flow.

But there's a reason every single filter has a spring in it-- even terrible filters that have minimal restrictions. And I like to think that the design engineers behind oil filters are using it to adjust and maintain overall system pressure.


That said, I was on a performance car forum for about 8 years. Many members there were running their vehicles on a track, for multiple hours on end near redline, some even having oil starvation issues due to g-forces in corners, many with annual tire budgets that exceeded a new Tacoma's MSRP. And none of those people ever dove into oil filters as much as this mid-sized consumer-grade truck forum has.