I still don't understand how the car originally was manufactured with the paper one and yet somehow it is no longer kosher to use a paper filter. The paper filter was endorsed by Mercedes/Chrysler for years before the fleece filter was implemented. So no its not the same as using $1.89 oil because the car originally called for full synthetic mobil 1 and never varied from that, whereas the car originally came with a paper filter and varied to a fleece one.