Bad oil filters

[dr. d]

Good question. There are a lot vehicles that employs that design. Most Hondas do that.

But if I were to take a stab at as to why not all engines are like that, I guess it all comes down to engineering, design and cost, among others.

When manufacturing at scale, component placement and orientation has a price tag attached to it. It's not uncommon for the bean counters during an engine's R&D to veto the engineers' wishes and put this and that part a certain way so it will cost less to make. So, it's not hard to imagine that they'd sooner orient an oil filter upside down or sideways because doing it the right way will require a bit more plumbing (read: expense). Whereas using a filter with just a little ol' silicone ADBV would cost much, much less.

ah yess...
there was this manufacturer that vetoed putting front stabilizers on its car.
as a result, "the car wallowed like a pig when cornering", which, they felt, contributed to poor sales.
they attempted to remedy it, but by then, the car was dead in the sales charts because of other issues.

OT.