subaru oil, oil filter, and oil change

[drdavidzhang]

subaru oil change

a few questions:
1. a non-dealer garage installed a Metrostreet filter. How bad is this?

2. The owner's manual calls for filter number 15208AA160, when I called the Subaru dealership they said the correct  number is now 15208AA15A
   what is the reason Subaru changed their part number? What exact the difference in turns of spec between 160 and 15A?

3. The manual says 5.1 quarts oil, I did not measure more precisely in the past, but this time it looks like I have to add more more than 5.1 quarts, I don't know why. Does anyone else have similar experience?

4. When I watch other people's video, they all jack up their car first. Do most people jack up their car when changing oil? Even if it were not SUV, I found that I can change the oil without a jackstand.

[idosubaru]

1. Benign. Subaru’s run 200,000 miles on whatever is on sale.  Buy another if you’re worried about it. 

2. Use a WIX filter. Don’t know. Could be a filter change or just for logistics/inventory reasons. 

3. Oil doesn’t fully drain until it’s heated to operating temps where it more easily drains into the pan.  Or it wasn’t level. 

4. No, if they need a jack to change the oil then they need a diet, a real job, or visibility and lighting for the video equipment.  Hahaha. 

[drdavidzhang]

18 minutes ago, idosubaru said:

1. Benign. Subaru’s run 200,000 miles on whatever is on sale.  Buy another if you’re worried about it. 

2. Use a WIX filter. Don’t know. Could be a filter change or just for logistics/inventory reasons. 

2. When I buy filters made by others, I could not find the PSI number. 

20 minutes ago, idosubaru said:

3. Oil doesn’t fully drain until it’s heated to operating temps where it more easily drains into the pan.  Or it wasn’t level. 

3. If I added less oil, then temps would explain it, but the opposite is true, I had to add more oil.

It's possible it wasn't level. I parked with the front of the car being higher than rear, do you this would show more oil? This could be a good research top. haha.

24 minutes ago, idosubaru said:

4. No, if they need a jack to change the oil then they need a diet, a real job, or visibility and lighting for the video equipment.  Hahaha. 

I am able to change oil for regular sedan cars. As long as your arm is long enough. In case it is too hard, I use this trick:

without jackstand  

 

[idosubaru]

6 hours ago, drdavidzhang said:

2. When I buy filters made by others, I could not find the PSI number. 

3. If I added less oil, then temps would explain it, but the opposite is true, I had to add more oil.

It's possible it wasn't level. I parked with the front of the car being higher than rear, do you this would show more oil? This could be a good research top. haha.

 

2. The psi alone doesn’t tell the whole story.  GD goes at length to describe why the Subaru bypass is lame because it allows unfiltered oil into the engine, and overall is a cheap filter and WIX better.  You can find his posts about the subject by searching his username and. “Oil filter”. You can use google search to just search USMB. 

3. You misread what I wrote. it wasn’t level. Yes Subaru’s read low when facing “uphill” and high when refacing downhill.

Yes that’s a problem if you’re going to attempt to be precise. Scientists don’t guess. Put water in a pan and tilt it - you’ll see the level can change depending on the location of the dipstick.  

you mis-read what I wrote or didn’t catch the essence of what I was saying. When oil is room temperature it is thicker and doesn’t flow as well.

You pour room temperature oil into the engine and not all of the oil makes it into the pan, so it measures low, and you see that low reading and add more oil....exactly what you said happened. 

The room temperature oil is thick and  laying in, and on the sides of, the valve covers and doesn’t flow all the way to the pan because it’s not 160 degrees. Drive the car and the oil gets hot and flows better and drains into the pan and a higher percentage of the original added volume makes it to the pan. Normally this would be inconsequential particularly in summer with modern low weight oils.  but you seem committed to fractions of millimeters so it needs mentioned  

 

 

[GeneralDisorder]

Belly pans, skid plates, and there are plenty of Subaru's that are too low for access without lifting and often too low to easily be ramped. 

The USDM Subaru filter is a $hit piece from the parent company that makes Fram (Honeywell). The bypass is high because A: it's a $hit filter -cellulose element with small surface area, and B: Subaru's run extremely high oil pressure and volume - especially on cold start so they are pretty much always in bypass for a good while. Thus the higher bypass rating to attempt to minimize this.... though it's pretty much a lost cause. 

USDM probably changed the part number when the SOA contracted the blue filters. 

If you want to do some REAL testing - get a differential pressure gauge and show how long each type of filter is in bypass mode and under what conditions (WOT, cold starts, etc) this occurs. I have been meaning to for some time but I get distracted by shiny thing like my DynoJet. 

GD

Edited September 20, 2019 by GeneralDisorder

[el_freddo]

AUDM subaru oil filter part no: 15208AA100 - made in Japan. Small unit. 

Cheers 

Bennie

[Mike104]

On 9/21/2019 at 1:06 AM, el_freddo said:

AUDM subaru oil filter part no: 15208AA100 - made in Japan. Small unit. 

Cheers 

Bennie

Sadly we can't get the Japanese made filters here in the US as Honeywell (FRAM) has the contract for USDM 

[el_freddo]

23 hours ago, Mike104 said:

Sadly we can't get the Japanese made filters here in the US as Honeywell (FRAM) has the contract for USDM 

Surely you can get them online? 

Cheers 

Bennie

[1 Lucky Texan]

search Ebay and other sources (flatironstuning.com ?) for Tokyo Roki filters.

some say you can backwards-match some mazda filters that will fit. They seem to be TR filters ?

Edited September 24, 2019 by 1 Lucky Texan

[Mike104]

Allegedly the Mazda N3R1-14-302 filter will fit on the EJ engines

[Mitchy]

I have discovered that many filters fit my Subarus. But really, it does not seem much of a problem to fork out a few notes every oil change for whatever filter of known brand.

Rather than forking out big money on genuine or Japanese filters, I change branded filters (usually ‘Mann’ at the place where I buy a few at a time) every oil change, keeping an eye on the oil colour between changes.

My oil never gets black!

[heartless]

I use the Purolator Pure One filters and found that the spec filter for the Forester's 2.5 was so tiny as to be laughable.. also found that the slightly larger filter spec'ed for the 2.2 would fit quite nicely, so that is what I have been using. No problems at all.