ALERT-WARNING LF9070 Fleetguard oil filters

I have a friend who spun a main bearing in an 08 isx this past summer. Was parked for the night and the engine was idling. From the way he tells it - it just happened all of a sudden. This was a company truck and the engine was pulled and replaced. They also did shorter 15k intervals. Although from the looks of it this is a quality issue, or lack of, with fleetguard not a reflection on extended oci's.

 

Pics of the napa filter, the filter is also a couple inches longer than the fleetgaurd one so it be easier to grab with a filter wrench as a bonus.

 

I have a customer who had that exact same thing happen. Most of our larger fleets with ISX are starting to do bearing rolls for the vocationals at about 13000 hours.

 

CAT filters are made by Advanced Filtration Specialists in Champaign, IL... talked to the sales reps at MATS and they offered to give me the nickel tour at the plant.

 

Here is a a bit of an update... We are still finding the odd FG 9080 with cut o-rings. We got an "unofficial" response from our local Fleetguard rep saying they do indeed know of the issue!!! They also claim they have tried to reproduce the problem themselves. No exact numbers were disclosed to us, but they said the percent of the failure was too small to warranty any kind of redesign or recall or even acknowledge it publicly. In the end, we are simply encouraging our customers to switch to the NAPA / CarQuest filter.

 

I have found this problem numerous times, primarily with LF 9080. I have had the fleetguard rep visit me at the shop and surprise surprise "this is the first time i've seen this" give me a break right? The first time I found this was in 2002 and haven't seen it until last summer when the LF 9080 was introduced. More often with the blue o ring than the black, but yes I have found broken black ones too. I have cut the NAPA or Carquest filter open, and looks to be a well built filter. We find av. one a week while doing regular oil changes, and it's real shame. Usully runs about $500-600 to find the missing pieces. Why?????

 

Very cool, always was curious who exactly made CAT filters.

Advanced Filtration Systems Inc
Manufacturing fluid filters for CAT
3206 Farber Drive
Champaign, IL 61822

 

Yes. It was widely disseminated information a few years ago. There was a problem with the L9000 lube filters creating restriction so that oil pressure was dropping below safe levels. At the time, it was being stated that there was a large batch of defective filters in the supply channels that were the culprit. Either way, Cummins then stated to start using the filters that are part of this discussion, and now they are not the most ideal product either. I went with Donaldson filters right out of the gate with my ISX before any of the FleetGuard issues ever came to light. Not disappointed that I did. Yet, Cummins had a brochure out at the Cummins shops that the Donaldson was an inferior product and shouldn't be used. Guess they didn't like the competition. 836,000+ miles later and no issues with my ISX due to bad filtration. Go figure.

 

Didn't they move Fleetguard filter manufacturing down to Mexico a couple years ago?

Also was thinking years ago there was a report on filters that Fleetguard didn't score very well there? But it has been a few years back & could have been on a diesel pick up site.

Regardless, hope more guys see this thread & not end up with issues noted here.

 

Had a different problem with that fleetguard oil filter on an ISX - the outer seal failed. The morning after a PM, the engine had cooled over 18 hours, and upon startup, it started leaking oil out the top. By the time i'd finished the trailer pretrip (about 4 minutes) two gallons had poured out. I can only imagine that the engine would have been toast on the freeway onramp had a steering wheel holder encountered the same problem. A loose installation of the filter was not the issue, as it took two filter wrenches and about 10 minutes to break torque.

Road service brought out a NAPA oil filter 4 hours later, and side by side with the failed fleetguard, the NAPA unit seemed substantially superior in construction.