My daughter’s 05 Highlander was getting close to its 5K oil change, hence I decided to change it for her this morning. The oil change itself is pretty straight forward but since the filter is side mounted on the left side of the engine block, there’s usually some spillage when removing the filter.
I was surprised to find no spillage and thought I was lucky until I looked at the inside of the filter. It was clean and dry. No oil ever circulated through this filter in almost 4.5k miles. I checked the part number of the filter on several online sites and it matches the application. I can only conclude that it’s a manufacturing defect and the bypass valve was stuck open from the onset.
Just to make sure it wasn’t an engine oil system fault i did the oil change, ran the car for a minute and then removed the new filter - it was full of oil and spilled oil in the usual manner when being unscrewed.
Conclusion - NAPA Gold filter is defective. I think that this line is manufactured for NAPA by WIX. Hence my concern -