10,000 miles just seems to long. I purchased an oil filter for a 2007 FEH and I have to say, that filter is not going to last 10,000 miles. It has to be the thinnest and least effective looking filter I have ever seen. The oil might be able to protect the motor but there is no way that the filter will work for more than 3,000 miles. If anyone has a chance take a look at the filter, you will be surprised.

 

Have a look through the other threads, there are several discussing oil change intervals. What you have to understand is that mileage is a poor indicator of how much an engine has run.... especially a hybrid where the engine is off 1/2 or 1/3 of the time. The main reason they give a 10,000 mile interval is that for a normal car it idles and the odometer does not go up... but the oil is being heated and broken down... so they have to pad the oil chages. Thats why city driving and taxi driving is considered "severe usage". Because the odomoter doesn't represent the "real" revolutions of the engine. On the FEH its the other way around.

 

I understand the theory of going 10,000 miles, my problem is the quality of the filter. If you look at the filter there is now way that it will last 10,000 miles and still be effective. I have a VW Passat that also uses the same type oil filter. The filter is from Germany and cost me $15. It is far and away a better made unit. I once left it on the motor for 6 months and it was so saturated with oil it could no longer be filtering the oil and the element fell apart in my hand. If one was to keep the oil in for 10,000 miles you really need to think about dumping the filter more often. Just my 2 cents.

 

The FEH filter is from England and costs $20 so it must be better. After all, the British are pretty refined.

The idea is that the filter isn't working too hard on these engines. I've saved all of my used filters (in case of warranty issues) and the longest I left one in was 5000 miles or so and none of them look bad at all.

I won't ever let a car go 10,000 miles, even using a synthetic blend. The recommended interval for oil changes in Canadian FEH is 5000 km (about 3000 miles). I knida meet in the middle and do mine between 4 and 5k miles. A little cheap insurance.

 

I actually felt the filter element I had was pretty well built. I mean its just the filter element. Usually all you get to see is the external tin can they build them in. However my father (a parts manager) has a display with alot of them cut in half. Some of the aftermarket ones are like tissue paper.

Also... The oil passes through the filter, so they are all saturated with oil after use. I think what you mean is that the element feels soft and mushy. However as long as its intact the oil still has to pass through it. If you think about it, its kind of counter intuitive. Thicker filters will impede oil flow, thinner ones will allow more through (along with more damaging particles). As the filter gets dirty the pores will fill up impeding oil flow, and actually retarding the amount of dirt going through it. So in one way the oil filter in some ways actually cleans the oil better of particles as it gets older (but because it allows less oil through you have to change it before that restriction becomes too great).

I'm not sure if car oil filters are set up so that if the filter gets really plugged the oil starts to pass by the filter (and be unfiltered).