Stop treating your diesel fuel filters like they never need changing

I swear, half the guys on this board run their filters until the truck starts stumbling down I-75 near Atlanta. I just pulled a filter off a 2019 Freightliner last week that was packed with algae and crap because the owner thought "it still runs fine." If you aren't swapping your primary and secondary at least every 15,000 miles in summer, you are asking for injector trouble. How often do you guys actually change yours out?

2 comments

2 Comments

mark_smith5915h ago

Yeah man I mean I've seen the same thing. Pulled a filter off an International that looked like someone dumped a pond in there, and the guy was still driving it. I change mine every oil change basically, maybe a little sooner in summer when it's hot. It's cheap insurance. For real though, idk why people wait till the truck starts coughing on the highway.

park.riley8h ago

Frequent filter changes are just throwing money at a non-problem, these trucks are built way tougher than people give them credit for. A slightly dirty filter isn't gonna hurt anything till it's actually clogged, and the computer will tell you long before it causes real damage. If you're dumping a new filter in every 5,000 miles you're probably spending an extra hundred bucks a year for absolutely zero benefit.