So I went to my local Grease monkey this afternoon to get my fuel filter changed.After 2 guys and 45 minutes they finally got it off,spent about 15 mins. putting the new one on.The main guy working on it told me it looked like the original factory fuel filter because of all the rust and difficulty getting it off.Only cost me 55$ to have them bust there knuckles.My question to every one here is : Is it possible for a fuel filter to last 19 years?

 

The fuel filter on my 91 3vze has never been changed and
I have put 210K miles on the truck since buying it new.

It all depends on the fuel...

Eugene

 

I thought they was only good for so many miles.Mine has 234K on it,didnt wanna take chance of being stuck on side of the road.

 

I don't see a service interval for the fuel filter in my service manual, although I bought my spare a long time ago when I thought that it needed changing as part of the normal service interval. As I said earlier, it does come down to whether or not the gas you buy is clean of any debris. In this case you don't want to replace filter on an interval as much as you want the new filter and the correct wrenches in the truck should the one on the fuel line get plugged. You can sometimes get a bad tank of gas out in the boonies, resulting in a plugged fuel filter.

Eugene

 

Yeah thats true,at least now the rust is broke free it shouldnt be that hard to change next time.

 

Better no money person drives all the time on 1/4 tank or lower takes out his 3rd fuel pump and has no clue.

For what it`s worth i sure would not want to change a fuel filter in the stock location any where but in the shop

With the filter where it is I can see them being on there 20 plus years

 

Hmmm...so why do all new vehicles have scheduled fuel filter change intervals in the manuals? So its a crap shoot with fuel because Ive got crap fuel at so called good service stations and had to change the FF.

 

Guess I should always stay above 1/4 tank then eh.

 

Yup. There was a gas station where I used to live (one of only 3 stations in the town on top of a mountain.) It was infamous for having water in the tanks because the snow would melt and get inside the tank. I think they got shut down and it was determined that half of what people were paying for was water. (of course that's an exaggeration). We had a car that refused to run there and it constantly broke down (Nissan 240sx). After draining the tank, we drove it on half a gallon of gas and 3 bottles of injector cleaner. Ran perfectly and after that we haven't had any problems.

Point is, that gas was horrible. I now try and stick with newer gas stations.

 

I would have GLADLY forked over $55 for somebody to change mine...it was a Beooch.

 

Yeah I gladly payed it after watching them get frustrated working on it for an hour.I knew it was a SOB just from reading this forum for past 3 months.I got comfortable in the waiting room and watched through a big plate glass window while 2 guys worked on it.Knew I would be there a while.

 

I worked for Toyota in parts for years. The Toyota fuel filters do not have a change interval because they were never intended to need changing. We use to get TSA from Toyota all the time about not needing to change them. Old school service people use to include it as parts of the maintenance on them and Toyota made it clear it was not need till over 700K kms. That is of course depending on the quality of gas being used at 100k kms (the normal fuel filter change interval) the Toyota filters would still be flowing something like 98% of its intended flow rate. They put a ton of research into it in the 80's.

I had to change mine on my 4runner after 340k kms, but that was because I got dirty water in the tank.

 

Expensive little bugger isnt it! I think I shelled out $60 for the damn thing from toyota...

now if I could only break the lines loose!

 

Use fire!!!!! HAHA j/k

I used Inforce and let it sit over night, they came right off after that. Make sure you use line wrenches.

 

i couldnt take my filter off i was like screw this. on this site somewhere someone stuck a different filter in from like a ford and put some plastic lines to the fuel lines

 

I just cut mine out and replaced the hard lines. The hard lines had corroded to the fittings and turning the fittings twisted the lines.

Interval? Either way, cheap piece of mind to know it is not an issue, especially if you are not the original owner.

 

I don't get it, you say that the Toyota filter doesn't need to be changed until 700K kms or 435,000 miles, but the normal filter change interval is 100K kms or around 62,000 miles.

So does it not ever need to be changed or does it need to be changed at 62K miles?

I don't see how they can invent a filter that never needs to be changed, but not put it on every car they make and how other manufacturers don't use the technology.

I used to work for Nissan and all fuel filters had a service interval of 30K, and let me tell you when they came off and got dumped out, what came out was filthy.

ALL gas has contaminants floating around in it. You don't just have to get a bad batch of gas with water in it (a filter isn't gonna do anything against water anyway) or gas from a station that just got filled from a tanker.

How do you think the so called stuff on the "bottom" of your tank gets there? It's sediment from all the crap that is in gas, constantly floating around in it all the time. This stuff doesn't just sit on the bottom of the tank and get sucked up when you go below a 1/4 tank, the tank is in a moving vehicle with gas in it constantly swishing around, all that crap is fully imersed in the gas all the time, as soon as you get down your street it's off the bottom and fully immersed. If a filter wasn't constantly neccesary and constantly filtering, then they wouldn't put one on at all.

That's like saying you only need to change your air filter if you drive in the desert in sand storms.

Go fill a 2 gallon gas tank and then dump some into a glass jar and see how clean it is, it isn't.

 

Toyota uses what they call lifetime fuel filters. That's generally why they mounted them in such PITA spots. For example, my MKIII Supra uses the same type as my pickup (but the mounting is different, IIRC), on the truck, it's tucked away under the intake manifold. On the Supra, it's located above the differential. Both spots are a b!tch to get to.

For what it's worth, I changed out the filter on my Supra when I put a high volume pump in, at 160k it looked perfect inside. At 155k on my Pickup, I did the headgasket (22re)- filter looked perfect inside. I replaced both anyway, as I'll probably never have to replace them again. Both were original.

Edit: I should mention that I didn't just look in through the holes of the filters, I actually cut them apart and examined every fold.

 

I changed mine out on my 91 pickup, from the original Toyota filter with 280k miles on it, when I had the intake manifold off doing some cleaning, and the only reason I did it then is BECAUSE of the fact that it's such a PITA to get to, and with the intake off, it's literally RIGHT THERE in your face

I then changed it again, 16k miles later, when I pulled the motor and rebuilt it from the ground up; but I replaced a LOT on that motor at the time; the fuel filter was the least of my expenses, lol

 

All the stuff I covered in my first post are about Toyota fuel not air filters and that information was supplied by Toyota to all its service and parts departments. If anyone wants to change there fuel filter go right ahead, there cheap. I was just offering Toyota's view on the topic.