Quote:
Originally Posted by Pnut
OK, but I didn't learn anything.  When I look at my hot water tank, it's designed to let water escape the tank to relieve pressure. I'm pretty sure an oil filter bypass (whatever the design) just bypasses the filter material, correct? So, while it's not ideal to circulate unfiltered oil, it's better than starvation by blockage or loss of oil if it were to somehow escape the sealed system. |
The problem is that allowing unfiltered contaminated oil to circulate is just going to make an already very bad problem even worse. If your oil filter is so plugged with metal that the bypass opens, your engine is already gone and will have to come out and apart. Continuing to circulate contaminated oil is just going to tear it up more.
By far, the largest negative to bypass systems, and to the M96/97 engine in particular is that the bypass fails and none of the oil is ever filtered. And if you think this is a remote chance thing, do a search on the subject; it happens a lot with the OEM filter set up.