Fram, Wix, Donaldson, Champion all make filters in the USA... but not 100%.

FREEDGUY wrote: There's a topic on AT about filters (Wix) and the fact that most guys have bailed on them because they're now made in China. Donaldson was also brought up as a "top-notch" filter but was "iffy" on the origin of manufacture. A gentleman claimed CAT filters were the go-to American made filter but got shot down pretty quick  .My question is, do ANY of the filter companies , including AGCO, offer an American made filter of any variation; air, oil, fuel ??

Freed, I don't know who but probably either Baldwin, Fleetguard, Donaldson(probably) or Wix makes AGCO filters,  I could be wrong but they outsource that.  Wix over 20 years ago was making filters in mexico, china would be a new one.  Fram is complete junk, hastings is junk(I think Baldwins cheap line),  but the first four I listed I have seen multiple filters cut open and they are always good.  Even win Wix said made in Mex on the box it was good.  Now if it said made in China I would question the product.

Seen a Fram small black chevy oil filter opened once the was so piss poor that there was a piece of string wrapped and glued around the center so the paper would separate.  That's No Joke!!!!

I am on several old car forums and many of the posters have said the best way to wreck an engine is to use Quaker State motor oil along with a Fram filter. 

My understanding is a number of years ago Fram "cheapened" their filters, don't know if it was the whole product line or just one line, by using a fiber/paperboard type material for the end caps instead of metal and several (okay, many) people had filters that failed and ruined some very expensive engines. Poor design? Poor quality control? Happened too frequently to be just a coincidence.  Are they better now? I would hope so but I don't know for sure.

I usually go for the WIX brand or a private label WIX, you tell by the WIX number with another number added. I do use a Fram filter for one of my old cars as nobody else makes the correct size it but it is a bypass system in a canister so not too worried about the filter "blowing apart" and ruining my engine.

I'm sure Fram was a good product at one time but that wasn't the case by the 90's,  when you want to sell cheap in the discount retailers quality isn't a priority.

Frams first fix was the string glued around the middle the second was a tin bypass at the bottom that set in a hole in the filter paper end, ya that let the oil by when their crap paper was plugged.  If they used the exact same paper as wix, baldwin, fleetguard, etc, they would be worthless still,  if I remember right a 51061 wix had 51 folds of paper and the same fram had 14.  The good filters have a coil spring bypass that is damn stout.  Fram is junk trust me, I wouldn't put them on a worn out motor that was burning 2 quarts a mile if I just wanted to drive it to the junk yard.

I worked my way through college in a repair shop/parts store and we sold Wix filters, once a year we had a filter sale/customer appreciate day and there was a slug of various filters with a multitude of different applications cut open on display so you could see quality of what's in that tin can and the Fram was only on the display table so our customers got a good laugh and something to talk about when they ate.

But, hey, we were in the USA!

Well Well Well, Tbone,  Luckily for me I didn't have to scrape buy on that little.  I got paid $6 hr and when I was working vehicles, tractors, equipment  they billed me out at $30/hr, but the boss fed me supper every night and I could eat, come to think of it he probably loss money when I worked for him.

The boss had the part/repair shop and farmed,  he died 1 year after I left college, 24 years ago and I still farm his ground to this day, so I shouldn't be complaining.  He was a good man, never saw him get mad.  His wife is my neighbor and I still look out for her to this day.  She's 91 and has been like a second mother to me.  Good people are few and far between today.