Wife; why would I pay for a cabin air filter? Me:

Other than a saggy filter, it appears the guy I bought my truck from was on top of it. Still gonna get a replacement for good measure.

 

IT’S MA’AM

 

I replace mine every year.

Sorry I don't have pics but imagine a cabin air filter completely full of kumquats, nesting material and rat shit. With a rat sized hole blown through it and more of the same in the fan and in the HVAC box/ducting. That was fun to clean up. Had to build screens in the cowl to keep the bastards out. My poor outside parked X-Runner got utterly savaged by rats prior to building my shop.

Worst one I have ever personally seen was in my wife's Lexus. Car is a 93 and we have had it for about 15 years now. Supposedly they didn't have cabin air filters for that year. Car had dealer service records from new to when we got it, no evidence of replacement.

So I start poking around and notice there is shit for airflow out of the vents. Consult the interwebs again, nope, 93 LS400s don't have cabin air filters. Search 94, they do. So I go looking where a 94 is supposed to have one and low and behold, cabin air filters. 20+ year old ones. There was so much crap in there I put a trashbag down before poking it all out of the ductwork. There was a small grocery bag full of leaves, sticks, dust, dirt etc in there.

And the AC worked great afterwards.

 

I see it does say that. I just reinstalled the way the old one was. I doubt it makes a difference either way.

 

?????

 

You can always tell how anal the previous owner was on maintenance by the cabin filter. It's something the average person doesn't do or refuses to get replaced at their shop.

This is the filter that came out of my truck after I bought it:



Not as bad as some of yous, but definitely no virgin. The first owner after contacting him, was pretty good on maintenance, the second owner... not so much. About 50K of sub par maintaining I've been catching up on...

 

I replaced both my cabin and engine airfilters a few weeks ago. Here is a pic of the engine airfilter. I'm concerned he had never replaced it while oddly enough the cabin airfilter was fairly clean.

 

Dude, I don't even have an acorn tree in my neighborhood. All walnut. Beats the hell out of me.

 

OMG

got your money outta that one

 

You would be the first then. Awesome.

 

Those are some pretty nasty filters - my daughter's Civic had one similar. So, my real question then, in my 2002 Tacoma DCSB, which doesn't have one, where does all that stuff go? The human wet hepa vac inside? Those acorns aren't bouncing around, at least I don't hear them, and the AC still cools the cabin in the Phx 115F bigly. 222k miles and still no recharge needed on that AC.

 

This is an evaporator from a 2005 that never used a cabin filter.

 

That's Brutal!!!!!!

 

Hence, why they are very important

 

I’ll admit that it took me 7 years to change my cabin air filter for the first time, but I do it annually now.

 

I serviced my wife’s subaru after giving up on the local monkeys. I must have been the first person to change the engine air filter in 30k miles it had a real nice mouse nest mostly made of insulation and cigarette butts.

 

I clean or replace my cabin filter at every oil change, which is about every 8-9 months. Never much junk in it, but then this is mostly a "city truck."

 

It is very fall like. Maybe I'll just use it as a decoration this year.