Heres a pic of the new style filter that i picked up from my local subaru dealership, its smaller and they changed the color. Is there any disadvantage or advantage to a smaller filter? anybody know why subaru changed? Thanks

 

Does it screw on ok? No leaks right?

Jun

 

You could have bought the STi oil filter by mistake

well I believe that is the same size as the STi's one. I buy my oil filters a case at a time and mine are all WHITE in color. the part number for the ones I'm buying is 15208AA060 it contains 12.

I notice that your part number on your oil filter is 080 not 060. I do not know why it's smaller (doesn't make sense to me why they'd put a smaller filter on a 2.5) but it maybe because it's made to filter better.

Jon

 

I think that they changed the oil filter on the turbos becasue of heating issues, but I'm not 100% sure on that.

Jason

 

3 oil changes in, each time I've bought the filter from the parts dept at the local dealership. All those times the filter has been smaller in size than the original one that the car(04 wrx) shipped with.

 

Subaru is recommending the 080 for all 02+ turbocharged engines. Lots of threads on various forums speculating why the change took place - the two most prevalent explanations are
1. manufacturer change
2. getting more space between the filter and the exhaust manifold

Someone also posted a thread where on the Forester XT the 060 wouldn't fit because the oil cooler line went down, rather than up.

They both fit just fine on an 02 WRX (I have been using the 060's, but bought 080's for the last batch of filters, so I have one of them on there now.) I like that the 080's are sealed from the factory... probably doesn't make any difference, but it's a nice touch.

 

dude they change the filter again!!! damn... i wonder what REALLY going on?

edgar,

 

oh and i heard one reasone for the change to smaller profile was to minimize the filter from being damaged or punctured...

edgar,
that i was told by the parts guy at subaru

edgar,

 

They changed it because they have a new supplier

 

My 2004 Wrx shipped with that small black filter .. I replaced it with a fram X2. which was bigger "I thought i might have gotten the wrong filter"

BTW: How much does the 080 cost

-John

 

I have no leaks it fits fine, and i did notice the change in the part #, the parts guy told me they changed them and i asked why he did not know at the time. Nobody knows if there are any perfomance downsides to a smaller filter?

 

My friend had a '01Honda Accord and i did all his oil changes. The filter size changed twice while he owned the car. i thought that the smaller filters would not work as well but the parts guy told me that some times they change suppliers and they find out they could make a smaller filter that would work just as well.

 

They were probably just trying to cut down on cost and maybe the smaller filter was the way to do that.

 

You can safely use either the 060 or 080 on the WRX. The 080 is the newer smaller filter. I did have a the same problem that DRD mentioned with the 060 not fitting on the girlfriends forester XT, so I ran out and got the smaller filter.