Air filter at dealer - $ 58, NAPA Gold filter (Wix) - $ 28...OK to use?
 

As above, my local dealer would like $ 58 for an air filter, please.

The NAPA Gold equivalent, manufactured by Wix, is $ 27.99. I inspected it, it looks and feels like the real deal. I've also attached an image.

Any reason I shouldn't use the NAPA Gold and save thirty bucks?

All opinions welcome.

Go for it. Wix has a good reputation. It is probably manufactured by one of the OEMs anyway.

I've been running a Wix filter for close to 2 years now. Save some money, and pick it up. There also are quite a few people running K&N filters, if you don't mind cleaning them, they are a good solution too. (Cue the K&N filter debate)

i have a k&n filter and i love it but like k. westra said, it just has to be cleaned every so often

Nah, too tired today. Wanna talk about oils or gasoline octane levels? :icon_wink:

One thing to watch for with aftermarket filters is the proper fit in the airbox. Some are consistanly 1/4" off or more. Take your old OEM filter to the car parts store to compare and be sure.

I'd have no problem using the Wix filter. I don't know what's in my car right now, but it's definitely not OEM.

K&Ns are good as long as they aren't over-oiled.
Synthetic oil is waaaayyyy superior to regular oil.
93 octane is mandatory.
The resistor is the superior method for reducing convertible hydraulic pressure.



(OK, I'm just kidding on that last one. :) Both methods are acceptable. )

I hope you were kidding and just trying to wind me up on the oil and octane things also-

1) there's no evidence that synthetic oils have any tangible short or long term benefits in our engines- key word 'tangible', ie more durable, more reliable, saves gas etc..

2) your owners manual specifies 91 AKI, not 93 AKI. The trade offs of using lower octane gas than that are well documented. Higher octane is pure waste.

D*mn, I did fall for it! :icon_doh: :icon_teeth:

i dont know much about synthetic oil but here on the east coast of america only certain gas stations sell 91 octane. EVERY gas station sells 93 which is most likely why he specified 93 octane

coupe man,,, i've been ussing napa air filter for almost 4 yrs now, no problem here and no fit problems either. oo by the way, i work for Napa, .......lololol...i use the oil filters too, and run 10w30 castrol and add lube molly made by the germans boys, and other parts too, not sure if i can say here ot not with out havign to make a new post

Geno
1995 xj 185k

Thanks
 

OK, thanks everybody.

I'll put the new NAPA Gold filter in tonight.

Over the weekend, I cleaned the throttle boddy, full-load breather tube, part-load breather orifice, and washed the intake tube and air filter box. So it's time for a fresh, new filter to adorn those newly clean parts.

Gas stations here sell up to and including 94 octane for some strange reason. Doesn't mean that it's mandatory to use it. Again, it's just wasted money.

NAPA doesn't manufacture filters, however they subcontract their filters to someone like Donaldson, Wix or Fleetguard.

They only sell premium filters--both air, fuel and air. Fram and Purolater are not quality filters--compared to the above filters.

As far as a K&N, they look good on paper, and my daughter's Civic SI runs well with them. But, I've seen many instances on this forum saying the oil coming off a K&N filter will screw up the MAP sensor--requiring cleaning. I don't want anything but clean air going thru my XK8 intake system.

If anyone is running K&N's on Powerstroke diesels, don't. The diesel sucks air differently than a gas vehicle, and K&N's let too much dirty air through the filter. Many people switch to a $200 Ford AIS filter housing and filter for their hopped up diesels.

Actually he's more right than wrong Rev. Sam. Diesels have no 'throttle plate' to reduce air flow at part throttle operation so the mass flow as compared to a spark engine of the same displacement for a given time period and engine speed is much much higher.

Love the baby vid BTW.

I've heard this before, and here are my thoughts... a diesel engine regulates its speed/power by controlling how much fuel is injected into the cylinder. Inject less fuel and the engine turns more slowly, right? A slower turning engine is going to draw in less air. For sake of simplicity, let's say we have a 1 liter diesel engine turning over once per second. That's 30 liters of air per minute being sucked into the cylinder (half of the downward strokes are power strokes and they don't draw in any air). Now, let's say we have a 1 liter gasoline engine also turning over once per second. Isn't it going to also draw in that same 30 liters of air? I guess you could argue that the air is elastic and the restriction at the throttle plate would cause a partial vacuum downstream of the throttle plate, but that's only going to happen when the throttle is fully closed, and even then enough air is squeezing past to keep the engine idling. At partial throttle, where engines are running most of the time, they are sucking in one cylinder's worth of air on each intake stroke, regardless of whether they are diesel engines or gasoline engines.

To say that a diesel engine needs a special kind of air filter is like saying that a 5 liter V8 needs a special air filter because it draws in more air than a 1.6 liter I4. It does need a different filter, but it's not because it's drawing air differently, it's just drawing more air.

K&N makes filters for Ford Powerstroke diesels. If there was a chronic problem with the K&N filters not doing an adequate job, I'm sure someone would try to sue K&N to get their engine replaced.

By the way... K&N filters work just like the hairs in our nose work. I saw this kids show on TV many years ago where they were demonstrating how your nose filters particles out of the air to protect your lungs. They started off with a tube about 6 feet in diameter and 10 feet long. They set up a fan and blew air through it, then they dumped a bunch of confetti in front of the fan. The confetti blew straight through the tube. Then they put a bunch of spongy sticks into the tube, kinda like those "noodles" that kids play with in the pool. They attached them to the wall of the tube so they stuck into the tube. They covered the sticks with something slimy, and then they tried to blow the confetti through the tube again. All of the confetti stuck to the slimy stuff on the sticks.

A paper filter has a certain pore size, and anything smaller than that is going to go through the filter and into the engine. A K&N filter can stop particles much smaller than a paper filter because as the air twists and turns through the mesh the particles end up sticking to the oily surface of the filter.

That's actually completely backwards. A K&N filter doesn't filter as well as a paper filter. That's how K&N type filters flow more air, by filtering less dirt out. You can google K&N vs paper tests.

And that's exactly how it works and why there's varying amount of vacuum in the intake manifold depending on engine speed and throttle position. 15 in/hg vacuum, typical of an engine at low speed, means a pressure of half atmospheric inside the intake. Spark engines suffer terrible volumetric efficiency (ability to fill the cylinders) at part throttle.

Go to the tail pipe of a diesel, and feel what the exhaust is like. It's nothing like a gas engine. A 17.5:1 compression ratio of an eight cylinder 444 cubic inch engine draws air in fast, and pushes it out the tailpipe fast.

Some K&N filters may not be structurally sound, and high intake pressures can distort the filter's shape thus producing air leaks. Knowledgeable diesel owners just don't use them--see Dieselstop.com.

WIX air filter
 

Back on topic here, best I can determine, the Jag filter is made by WIX, a German company that also sells exactly the same product without Jaguar stamped on it. It even has the same small red lines running through it. I had both the old Jag one and the new WIX one in my hands. They are the same.

I really need to be joining in these threads before those K&N / oil / octane debates can get a running start... now, where's that 'diffuse a bomb smiley'. Never one around when you need it.