Posted by Kevin in Ohio [172.70.100.234] on Wednesday, August 12, 2026 at 21:54:54 :
In Reply to: Re: NPA Gold 3003, NOT made in CHINA posted by Tom Petroff (IL) [172.69.6.199] on Wednesday, August 12, 2026 at 13:13:05 :
Fram was near me and knew a guy who worked there. I learned something about Fram and other filters, I did a show at their factory and they wanted me to be in their booth at the Indy Jamboree. I figured if I was I better have a Fram filter on the truck since they were paying all the entry fee and stuff. I did and when I went to put it on I noticed it rattled.
I asked the salesman at the show if that was normal and he said, oh no. He went to the trailer and gave me one of their premiums and he said put this on as soon as you can. I went home and pulled it out of the box and it too rattled. I asked the guy where I worked about it and he said the filter was missing the internal spring that holds the cartridge up and it was now filtering nothing. He said it was common on their big filter machine to malfunction and omit them. Sometimes they wouldn't catch it and he's get paid overtime to shake filters to find the bad ones.
I then went to buy an OEM and took the Frams they had and shook them. 2 out of 3 rattled. Went to another store a few days later and one there did as well. Made me wonder how many 10s of thousands of filters are doing nothing? The springs are so it the element gets plugged, it will bypass and hot starve the engine for oil.
Moral of the story. Shake your filters before installing.