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the cabin air filter: the one nobody knows they have

your vehicle has two air filters. one cleans the air the engine breathes. the other cleans the air you breathe, and most people do not know it exists.

what it does

every bit of air coming through your vents passes through it: dust, pollen, soot, road grit, and whatever was in the air behind the truck in front.

it sits behind the glovebox on most vehicles, occasionally under the cowl at the base of the windscreen.

the signs yours is finished

  • weak airflow even with the fan on full. the commonest sign and the one people blame on the blower motor.
  • a musty smell when the fan first comes on, which is damp trapped in a loaded filter.
  • the windscreen taking longer to demist, because the defroster is being starved of air.
  • hay fever that is worse in the car than outside it, which is exactly backwards and a good clue.

how often

most manufacturers say every 12,000 to 25,000 kilometres, or annually.

sooner if you drive gravel roads, which plenty of people around Elgin County do, or if you park under trees. a filter that looks like a doormat is not filtering anything, it is just restricting the fan.

worth knowing before you pay for it

it is one of the easiest jobs on a modern car, and on many vehicles it takes about five minutes behind the glovebox. if a shop quotes you a large number for one, that is worth questioning.

we will tell you when yours is due, show you the old one, and if it is a five-minute job on your vehicle we will say so. charging an hour of labour for five minutes behind a glovebox is precisely the sort of thing that makes people distrust repair shops.