Fuel Filter Service Life

[Diesel85]

yeah, lot of food stuff says Best if Used By... doesn't mean its spoiled but common sense should prevail. I think in the case of an oil filter there is some common sense in that little article, do not use it if it is dented or rusty , or if it has been removed from the packaging for a long period of time, same as on a can of food.. anyway, it isn't something I am going to worry about.

I eat expired canned food all the time. I've eaten 3 year past it's "best by" date. That's about my limit. The biggest thing is where it's stored at. My canned food is stored in a cool wine cellar temperature basement. Storing canned food is like properly storing DEF.

I was given a couple cases of canned goods a grocery store was going to throw away because they were 2 weeks out from "best by" date. No way was I gonna let that go in the trash...

No way would I eat canned food that sat in a hot vehicle for 3 years pasts it's "best by" date.

 

[Tuesdak]

Don't forget the warranty from a failed filter covers damage caused by the filter failure and in this case of a diesel fuel filter it's the fuel injection system AND engine if the worst case injector hangs open and burns the engine down. The FRAM Oil Filter Failure and PIA to get the Cummins engine rebuild covered is a thing on The TDR. Eventually the engine damaged from the filter failure was covered by FRAM's 3rd party administrator.

I have opened up many filters and found manufacturing defects where the filter is bypassed. Consider the Bad Rash all over the internet of Tear-O-Later filters that are known to fatigue fail in use with torn pleats.

Imagine using this defective filter past it's warranty date even after being vacuum packed for long term storage.

Maybe you got hold of a old filter design like a Donaldson air filter for a 2008 Duramax. They redesigned this air filter with a "X" cross stop as the filter glue would fail and the filter came apart.

Failed at 57K miles under one year old.

Updated design with a "fix".

In summery even on old out of warranty vehicles and equipment there is value in using filters that are not expired: because if they are defective or otherwise fail they have a warranty that covers damage caused by failure.

 

[Turbo Terry]

Pretty ironic that 25 years ago we couldn’t wait to void the warranty on a new truck better off modified baby to now buying extended warranty’s and staying stock to not void the warranty . We paid to play then now we are paying to keep our warranty intact now

 

[Signal73]

we are paying to keep our warranty intact now

We who?

 

[Grumpy8811]

I know some people on this forum are probably borderline OCD so I went looking on BITOG, Since BITOG can best be described as the home run discussion forum for compulsive oil changers and OCD over analysis of anything and everything to do with cars, trucks, oil, filters etc
I ran across two discussions on BITOG about shelf life of filters.
All I can say is if you think TDR sometimes get's a little tedious and over the top, check these two out.

https://bobistheoilguy.com/forums/threads/oil-filter-shelf-life.379483/

https://bobistheoilguy.com/forums/t...-go-bad-sitting-on-the-shelf-too-long.383609/