[dragula81]

60Man is exactly right. I worked for a NAPA at one time and we made a counter display by cutting open about 5 different brands of oil filters including Fram. I personally bought and cut open each of these fitlers myself (got the Fram at Wal-mart) for the display so there was no "trickery" involved.
The NAPA Gold (made by Wix) had metal end caps glued to a fiber heavily pleated element and a heavy duty spring loaded bypas valve on the end.
The Fram had cardboard end caps glued to a paper filter with literally a string tied around the pleated element to keep it from "popping open" and the bypass valve was just a bent piece of flat metal...no spring at all.
The NAPA and one of the other filters were very similar. I think it was the Motorcraft filter (which may be made by WIX also), I don't remember.
The poor quality of the cheap Fram was so obvious that any idiot could see it. We would still have "Fram people" come in and look at our display and still argue that they would never stop using Fram's. Some people are hardheaded.
Drag

http://webpages.charter.net/dragula7