Is your cabin air filter in your car dirty? Do you know if your vehicle has one?

I have made mention of what a cabin air filter is,and what it does in my book “If That Car Could Talk”. On page 129 I show an example of an unbelievably  dirty cabin air filter. The point I am trying to get across is most people do not realize that they are breathing the air that passes through these dirty filters! The pictures that you see in this article on the left is of a cabin filter from a 2012 vehicle with only 20 k miles on it. The new filter is pictured on the right. This will give you an idea of just how quickly a cabin filter can get dirty especially if you travel on dirt roads a lot. For you do it yourself types out there you can replace a cabin air filter pretty easily, and on most  newer vehicles they are usually located behind the glove box. If your cabin filter has never been changed be careful when removing it as significant amounts of debris can collect on the top of the old filter. What can happen is that debris can fall into the blower barrel fan assembly when you remove the old filter. This will reduce the fans performance, and cause the fan to go out of balance and make a vibrating noise. If that’s the case you will need to remove the cabin filter and get in there the best you can with a vacuum and suck out the debris. Worst case scenario you would have to remove the blower motor assembly to remove any remaining junk that you could not get with a vacuum. Some automotive manufactures suggest that you replace your cabin filter every 15 K or more often in dusty conditions.

 

Dirty filter on left,new filter on right

Dirty filter on left,new filter on right

 

 

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