A filter doing its job. I'm due to change mine out soon. Or rather than me Anson is due to change mine out. Have the filter kit, now to book an appointment. Thanks for the reminder Nathan.
Only two things that could possibly last forever are anvils and crowbars....maybe mothers in law but... If a company says their product will last a lifetime their sales team flunked Marketing 101 - and who's lifetime are they referring to?
Don't forget ex wives!:incazzato: Need to change mine in the near future as well. Fuel filter that is.
Discussion overheard between two BMW attorneys.... "Let's go with lifetime filters.... Lifetime oil.... etc..." "Wut"??? "We can't say that...." "One can only assume that "lifetime" refers to the lifetime of the filter / oil.... But we won't say it in writing..." "OK" "Once the filter has no more life.... Then it's at the point where it has exceeded it's lifetime... Snicker Snicker Snicker" "So in other words... It continues to filter for a filters lifetime..... until it doesn't....." "Yeah" "Once the filter has used up all it's life, it's commonly referred to as..... "It Dead" "OK.... Let's go with that..... Lifetime filter / Lifetime oil..." "It'll be great....."
The production lifetime of the current model. Then you're expected to update your car to the next model.
Wow, I changed the fuel filter on my Del Sol when it was around 200K and it didn't look anywhere near that bad! And that was a car that had a hard life. Especially considering when I got it the previous owner, Mom, never put anything but 87 in it and it needed 91. It took awhile for me to get that car running right because of that.
The fuel filter on my 2004 R53 looked the same black color when I replaced it a couple of weeks ago...I think this is typical of Mini fuel filters with similar mileage. I believe the reason the car "gets away" with not having the fuel filter replaced is the shear size of it....the filter is quite a bit larger than other typical automotive fuel filters. I've dealt with quite a few antique and older cars, and save the 30's cars with their "fuel bowl" sediment style filter, all the rest had filters 1"-2" in diameter and a similar length. The only one that I can say ever actually clogged and caused a function problem was a 1980 305 cu.in. Chevy truck with a 1" diameter fuel filter that would clog within 6 months. Between today's strong electric fuel pumps (anybody remember beating on the gas tank of their MGB to get the weak pump working again?) and the large size of the Mini fuel filter, true operational problems due to a clogged fuel filter are almost non-existent. Having said all that, it would be foolish not to replace such a dirty filter every 50-75K miles....I waited til 92K to do mine the other week, but plan the next replacement 50k miles from now....
Call me foolish. Mine is about to be done. Next one will be at 200,000 miles. I can't conceive of that filter plugging up. Maybe if you had a couple shovel fulls of dirt in there. For me 100,000 thousand miles is reasonable.
It is probably a placebo type effect but my MINI is just a smidgen more responsive feeling now with the new filter.
I saw the Gnatster's strips today and they look marvelous... [ame=http://youtu.be/hXydX9p_ZxA]Billy Crystal - You Look Marvelous (1985) - YouTube[/ame]