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Cabin A/C Air Filter Maintenance
[Difficulty Level 1]
Including:
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Where to fine it
How to change it
"Rolling your own" |
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To find the cabin air filter,
open the glove compartment, remove enough to get to the plastic panel at
the very back, top of the box. |
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This panel slides straight up
at both left and right sides. Then just remove it. Only left side shown
here slid up a bit. |
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Behind the glove box cover you
will see another plastic rectangular cover approximately the same size as
the glove box cover. |
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This is where I change
from fingers to tools because the space is small. With pliers, reach in
and pull on the left or right vertical tab. Pull straight and pop out and
remove the cover. |
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A bit of detail in how to grab
one of the tabs with pliers. This process is to be reversed to replace this
cover later, locating it in place and snapping it back in. |
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Once the inner cover is removed,
you will see the filter tray. Using pliers or fingers slide out the filter
tray by pulling on the tab. |
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This is my home made
filter removed after 6 months (during spring, summer, fall). A nice collection
of pine needles (lots of big pines on my property). The factory filter material
is a much finer filter paper that is claimed to filter pollen and finer
road dirt. My home brew replacement works well only for courser material. |
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After using the home made replacement, I went
back to the factory specified filter. It is a reasonable price given what
it does. That is, the factory filter is not designed for what you think!
Does it give you clean air to breath? Yes. Does it help keep the interior
of the vehicle dust free? Yes. However, it is absolutely required for
the most important job - to keep the A/C element clean and efficient.
The construction of the A/C element that contains
the cooling refrigerant is such that the fins are spaced very closely
together to increase the efficiency for the total space taken up. These
close spaced fins require dust free air to remain efficient. If the air
passing through contains dust, the dust will collect on the fins because
the fins are typically wet from condensation. This tends to clog the fins
with dirt and dust making the cooling effect inefficient. The collection
of dirt and dust can also cause the element to smell like a "dead
rodent" when you first turn on the heating or cooling system. Stick
with the factory filter. The following will work:
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