I have a question, the last two filters I purchased for my F430 came with oil inside I am told that that is how these filters are sold now, I am unconvinced It makes no sense to me, but who knows? would anyone have reliable info? is someone peddling used filters out there? best
Probably pre wetted to saturate the media and prevent any sort of repellancy (is that a word) causing an issue, and to allow for best filtration. Maybe they found dry media to be letting debris through or causing pressure or flow issues from the media being repellant to the oil, newer media being typically synthetic as opposed to organic. Picture peering through a dry cotton gauze air filter, and then a properly oiled one. The hole sizes decrease when gauze is wetted. Pre-wetted, it seems the oil would wick and flow through much faster at the initial start up.
I know a gal that works for FRAM, and I run into her from time to time. I'll ask her next time I see her. I don't know her all that well, and she travels around a lot, going from one facility or plant to another, so I never know when I'll bump into her, but next time I do I'll make it a point to ask.
If the inside has oil in it but not the outside.. it's not used. Likely pre-oiled the interior to help with oil saturation and prevent blowout of the paper filter. If it were used the entire filter would be oil saturated.
100% common. They are pressure tested at Purflux, and **ALL** are disgustingly oily, straight from Ferrari.
p.s. This all began about 2 years ago when the part number was superseded. I can only assume/guess/postulate that the supersession had something to do with a confirmed failure of the old ones, so Ferrari (or Purflux) mandated a test of every new filter. They come wrapped in plastic, then boxed. Some of the Maser ones are equally oily -- and they quite frankly are a mess to keep on the shelves.
I suspect that with the number of filter failures Ferrari has had they got fed up and this was done to pacify them.
Thank you for the confirmation, Now I am comfortable using these filters. I was confused, I am an automotive engineer, and technically testing filters in this manned made no sense, Ferrari engines do not have higher oil pressure then other engines and oil filter failures even on cheap pep boys filters are very rare, plus you can simply pressure test with air or nitrogen, a lot less messy. now that it has been established that they do arrive wet, I am confident that Ferrari has a good reason to do so, probably to presoak the media for some purpose. I was really suspicious, I speculated that someone got a hold of some discarded filters from the factory dyno room or even worse, found a bunch of defective filters that were replaced at the assembly line, and peddling them around.
Actually oil filters failures on Ferraris have been common. There have been recalls, campaigns, TSB's and may design revisions. So much so that they all also have a torque specification that Ferrari expects to be followed. The problems date back to the 80s. One of the many design revisions was to put the umbrella around the filter on your 430 to keep the escaping oil off of the exhaust manifolds preventing fire.
Yup. Early cars did not come with it. It was designed to redirect the spray when the seal blew out preventing fire.
Is there some unexpected resistance to oil flow when the filter is dry? And wetting the filter with oil reduces this pressure spike? Can this be avoided by wetting other filters with oil before installation? Or am I way off base here and this filter wetting is the result of a testing protocol with oil before the filter is approved for delivery? Looking at alternative filters to the UFI, there is little or no real price difference with a couple of minor exceptions. So if there is no real advantage to an alternate filter on price and the modifications to the UFI filters seem to have solved the failure problem, it might be prudent and best to stay with the orignal UFI filter.
There is no UFI (or any other alternative) presently available for the Purflux filter (234742) in question.
Ferrari part #234742 and Maserati part #289571 are individually pressure tested at their respected factories. There is no other "option" from a Ferrari/Maserati dealer - all filters are previously pressure tested. Thus this is how all authorized Ferrari/Maserati dealers receive them.
