Will using a oil filter other than a Ford Motorcraft filter void your warranty? If not what oil filter do you think is the best? Do you have a part number for the 05 or is it the same as last years 4.6? Thanks!

 

No it will not void your warranty, but in honesty I still like the Motorcraft. They are a very good compromise between filtering and flow, and the quality is very good IMHO.

Filters like the Purolator Pure-One and K&N are nice enough, but sometimes they limit flow a bit compared to a Motorcraft in my experience (reducing oil pressure), and I would spend the extra money on full synthetic motor oil first.

 

No, using another brand won't void the warranty. Mobil 1 and K&N are a couple of excellent filters but there really isn't thing wrong with the Motocraft filters. The filter number is FL-820-S (same that I use on my Mazda 6). You should be able to cross-reference it.

 

BTW, if you are thinking about any kind of additives for your oil/tranny fluid I highly recommend Lucas products. I got 320,000 miles out of an Escort automatic that intitially started slipping at just shy of 200,000.

All I did was add Lucas and keep the fluid changed. In truth, the tranny shifted better after I put in the Lucas than it did at about 90,000 miles with fresh fluid right after I bought the car. And, in case you are unfamiliar Ford auto-trannys do not often get to 320,000 miles no matter how well maintained.

 

Do you think that fram oil filters are good?

 

I am not persoanlly a FRAM fan. They seem to be on the high end of standard filters price wise, but offer nothing to justify that higher price. Honeywell is the owner of FRAM though, and they are a very credible company.

 

There are better filters than Fram, including the Motorcraft. BTW, I work for company that does ALOT of business with Honeywell and I've never been that impressed with them. We've had issues with them not delivering what they promise. Of course it's a different division than Fram, so it may not apply.

 

I'm surprised that Honeywell has gotten so bad, years ago a couple of relatives of mine dealt with Honeywell and were impressed by them. However, that was long ago and things change.

 

Like I said, the division we deal with is like that. Others may not be that bad.

 

No. They used to be above average for a cheaper filter, but the quality has gone down hill while other products have gotten better. There is a pretty convincing report where a guy analyzed a variety of filters and Fram came in as pretty crappy. It was all over the Jeep BBSes a couple years back. See his conclusions page for some of the better performing filters. Personally I try to stick with K&N or Mobil1. The additional expense over the life of the car is small enough to be worth the extra piece of mind in my opinion.

-Mike

 

No. Using a non FoMoCo filter will not void your warranty, however, unless you are willing to drop down $10.00 per filter for a Mobile 1 or K&N filter, I would stick to the FoMoCo filters. They are cheap and one of the best out there. Plus you can pick them up at Wally World.

Ford filters are identical to purolator filters.
*edit*
I think fram filters are junk.