A co-worker gave me 6 Bosch 72161 spin-on type oil filters, he bought an ex-police bike, '04 R1150RTP and it turned into a 'money pit' .
He got rid of the bike a few years ago and gave me these filters last summer .
I just had an oil and filter change on my oilhead a week ago .
I'm not comfortable with oil filters that aren't made for the specific application .
So, I bought an OEM BMW filter and did my oil change, today, I brought the used OEM filter and the Bosch filter into to work, to cut them apart and see if there were any differences .
First off, the OEM filter does not have the anti drain rubber flapper valve, the filter is installed vertically, so it doesn't reqiure it, the Bosch filter has the valve .
The filtering area seems to be the same, 59 pleats in the filtering media and the pleat depths are the same, now whether the filtering media is different, can't tell by visual observation .
I checked the filter bypass valves on each filter with a calibrated push-pull gauge, there's a hook on one end and a long pin on the other end, that you can use to push on an object .
The OEM filter bypass valve started moving at 10 pounds of force, the Bosch started moving at 1 pound of force .
Don't know what that translates into for oil pressure, but it's quite obvious that the Bosch will bypass quickly with cold thicker oil .
The bypass valve in the OEM filter is a rubber coated metal disc, the Bosch filter has a plastic disc .
May want to give this some thought when choosing filters not meant for the application you're going to use them in .
I'm staying with OEM filters for the oilhead, even though they cost about 3 times as much as the Bosch filters .
