Switched from used oil analysis to filter cutting last year and never looked back

I used to just send oil samples off to Blackstone every change and hope for the best. But after a 2018 Cummins ISX ate a camshaft on me, I started cutting every oil filter open with a bandsaw to look for debris. Now I can spot bearing flakes or ring material right there in the shop. Has anyone else found metal in their filters that the oil report missed entirely?

3 comments

3 Comments

mark36122d ago

My buddy Jake runs a small fleet of box trucks out of Tulsa. Last year he had a 2014 Ford 6.7 that was starting to make a little tick at idle. He did a UOA on it anyway, and the lab said everything was in normal range. He was about to let it slide but decided to cut the filter open just for peace of mind. There was a good amount of fine silver flaking in the pleats, looked like bearing material. He pulled the turbo and found the thrust bearing was already walking sideways, just about to let go. That oil report would have cost him a whole engine if he had waited another 500 miles. So yeah, I get what you're saying about the fancy data being useful, but I've seen too many cases where the filter told the real story first.

ryanburns1mo ago

...and honestly that's kind of how everything works these days, isn't it? You can get all these fancy diagnostic tools and data points, but nothing beats just getting your hands dirty and looking at what's right in front of you. I mean, I've seen it with my own truck's oil filter too - a couple of tiny sparkly flecks that probably wouldn't have even been flagged on a lab report. It's like checking your own tire wear by feel versus trusting some computer to tell you when to rotate them. Sometimes the old school way just catches stuff that the numbers can't see.

nina_jenkins1mo ago

Actually the oil filter bit isn't quite right. Sparkly flecks in your oil filter aren't the early warning sign people think they are. By the time you can see metal with your bare eyes, the damage is already pretty serious. Lab reports can pick up microscopic wear patterns way before anything visible shows up. That's the whole point of them. Same with tire wear too honestly - feel can tell you something is off but it won't tell you why or how bad it really is. Numbers and physical checks should work together, not against each other.