other than it being red and expensive?

Just wondering really.

and why can't engine oil or light grade, e.g. 3-in-1 oil be used intead?

I've never had any adverse effects from using 'other' oils on K&N filters, have used WD40 when nothing else was to hand.

I'm sure K&N wouldn't honour warranties though if they knew you were using 'inferior' oil

As long as you give it a good degreasing clean then a good coat before it goes back on the car, it should be fine......
ofcourse this is just my experience to date with K&N. I take no responsibility for any damage you may cause!!

[Edited on 20/2/06 by SALAD]

I cleaned my K&N filter and re oiled with 3in1 oil. No problems encountered since!

Considerable damage will be being done however to K&Ns profit by not using their own expensive oil!

Their oil is cheap enough bought from decent suppliers!

Why use anything else on a filter that is exxypensive anyway, false economy.

Think the real stuff has some tacking agents in it, some form of polymer or other.

Ive heard countless stories of people using other light oils on K&N filters. No-one has said there were problems doing so but i guess not many people are able to do airflow and filtration tests to see if this has adverse affects not immediately obvious.

I used proper cleaning kit, yes it costs a few quid but does what it says on the tin and gives you piece of mind. Oil lasts quite a while as well so you get a few services out of the kit.

The oil will probably effect the filter ablity to clean the air, somthing I think you will find hard to measure.. I use some filter measuring equipment at work, this is not a simple problem. In reality I suspect it will make little diffrance if your car is doing low milage, as the wear induced by the dirty air is probably not great...

The KN oil does seem quite sticky.

I just can not understand why you would use any other oil. You have an expensive filter and expensive engine why compromise the air flow and filtering capabilites.

I would guess that by using a thinner oil the filter will not filter as effeciently. The particles that do damage to an engine are very small.

By cheap by twice.

If you can not afford to do it right first time wait until you can.

John

JB - you infer too much

Just curious.

The small amount of oil I use isn't going to break the bank.

Reminds me - must clean and oil my filter...

That's it, it isn't very expensive as long as you don't buy it from Demon Thieves!

Think the last lot I got came from here, a very good, friendly and cheap supplier to autograssers!

BP Grassing

It's £4.50 for an aerosol canful, which does my big quad throttle body airfilter (100mm deep one) 4 times. ( I clean it every other meeting normally as it gets 10mm thickness of dust on it by the end!)