The Purolator is today's fram. They apparently have had a bunch of bad filters with tears and poor quality and unsealed pleats. I use to seek out Purolator cause they were good and affordable but after seeing many pictures of them and hearing how many people found them with pleats that are unglued or the e core plastic center giving way it's not worth it to me for a dollar or two saved.
Bummer. I really like their P3001L Ag filter. I use it on my truck!
Wonder if the 3rd party filter maker sells to both Fram and Purolator.
For Wix, Mann-Hummel now owns them. And the Pro-Tech was then merged with Wix. It's a tab better than the normal Wix. I've used several of them already with good results.
Fram was sold not to long ago (again LOL) to First Brands Group LLC. Oddly FBG is really a reinvented company formerly called TRICO, the wiper blade company that was out of Buffalo, NY. They also now own Brake Parts Inc (Raybestos brands). FBG has moved the TRICO HQ to Cleveland, OH and engineering offices of TRICO to Detroit suburbs near the Chrysler HQ in Auburn Hills.
Now here is the best part for FRAM filters, FBG has also acquired Champion Laboratories Inc., so the filtration of FRAM should be much more superior than before. All of this happened in 2020 during the C19 era of panic in the auto aftermarket arena. It would be really nice to see Fram on the come back to a world class filter provider once again.
One thing is interesting about FBG, they now have FRAM and also Autolite. This is 'reunion' of the 2 companies that were sistered 40 years back under Allied Signal that later became Honeywell Automotive.
FBG now owns:
TRICO - wipers, washer pumps, and cleaning systems
BPI (Raybestos) - Brakes
FRAM - automotive filtration products
Champion Laboratories Inc. - Filtration
Autolite - The original Champion Plug company renamed after sell-offs prior to the 1970s.
Cater - Fuel pumps and water pumps
LuberFiner - Filtration products
ANCO - wipers
StrongArm - those lift arms for hoods, tailgates and hatchbacks
Only 2 companies are not back to the family, Bendix and Mirrorex. Allied Signal also had them as well. We know the history Bendix. Mirrorex is all automotive mirrors, heated mirrors and auto dimming mirrors. They were big in the day in the Detroit area across the street from Bendix in the Bendix complex.