I changed my oil a couple days ago and when I tried to spin on the new filter (WIX 51626) it would only go on about two turns before stopping. I took it off and inspected the threads in the filter and on the post but both appeared fine. I tried again with the same result. I figured I must be cross-threading it somehow so I kept trying for another 15 minutes or so. I never got it to go so I put the old filter back on until I could figure out what was going on. I contacted Chris at WIX who recommended I return it to O'Reilly's for replacement, which I did. The clerk and I were curious so we pulled a new one out of the box and immediately noticed that the threads didn't look right. In fact, there was a pretty big sliver of metal protruding from one of the threads. She had one more 51626 which at least didn't have any chunks of metal hanging off the threads so I took that one. We'll see.

So a word of warning but also a question... My filter attaches vertically, can I replace the filter without draining the oil? I would like to pull my old filter off and test the new one without having to drain another $50 worth of oil from the pan. On the plus side, the clerk at O'Reilly's gave me 6 quarts of oil to replace the six quarts I'd lose when I swapped filters. I didn't ask for that, she just gave it to me. I should also say that Chris at WIX has been very helpful and concerned and is looking into their tooling. I know many people here swear by WIX filters and I've been very happy with them but I would recommend inspecting them before use until they get this resolved.

 

>

 

Yes

 

Damn, that sounds like bad luck. I wonder if their metric tap is having issues. No problems on 3/4-16 land

The sump is located blow the oil filter in the Jeep engines, you never had to drain oil to change the filter. All you're going to lose is the oil that's inside the filter itself. (Unless you're doing this while the engine is running...)

 

LOL! Always. Oil changes and timing chain replacements are always best accomplished with the engine running. Otherwise, how would you know if something is going wrong? Plus, the oil drains way better when it's hot.

 

Tune-up's are also done best with engine running, in the dark. Never ending check-for-spark-show...

But yes, you can just change the filter, you will make a mess but only with the oil from the filter

I just bought three WIX 151085 filters....they appear all to be good.

 

You won't have much of a mess in that 1/2 of the oil in the filter drains back into the engine on shutdown on a vertical filter orientation.

 

I wouldn't worry about it I'm sure their quality control caught it quickly. Your the first that I've heard of with a problem with Wix but it can happen to anyone in a production run.

 

This wasn't meant in any way to bash WIX, I know they're good and I know they're not infallible. It's just a heads up until the current stock cycles out of vendors inventory to be careful and check the threads on your filter before installing it. They may have caught it quickly but I'd say not quickly enough since I personally got two bad filters and I do worry a little about thumbnail-sized pieces of metal floating around in my crank case and head.

 

Stuff that size just drops to the bottom of the pan.

 

SoCal - O'Reilly's?
Were these oil filters new or previously loved by some budding, perhaps less than competent mechanic?

 

FWIW, I changed my oil 2 days ago on my non reneix '97...Wix went on fine.

 

Totally different filter, 3/4"-16 thread

 

I read the post...just saying mine went on without a problem

 

Yeah, it was in SoCal and it was a ghetto O'Reilly's but both filters still had talc on the o-ring and appeared clean and unused.