How Often Should Cabin Air Filter Be Changed

Dust. Pollen. Pollution. Highways and roads can be highly contaminated places, simply the inside of your car shouldn't be. Although 76% of vehicles on the road today are equipped with a cabin air filter, most vehicle owners are not aware of their motel air filter which is specifically designed to clean the air that blows into the interior of their vehicle. These filters are designed to trap debris, pollution, and dust from inbound your car. Believe it or not, it'south quite easy to supplant your cabin air filter on about vehicles, and yet the bulk of drivers either don't do it regularly or they drastically overpay their mechanic to supervene upon it for them

So, you may exist wondering "how frequently should I replace my cabin air filter?" The answer really depends on several factors:

Driving atmospheric condition
Vehicle usage
Standard maintenance recommendations

By the time you lot're done reading this commodity, you'll have a strong sense of how often you should supervene upon your cabin air filter in order to maintain a healthy air quality inside your vehicle.

How Often to Change and Replace Cabin Air Filter?

Driving Conditions

The driving atmospheric condition in which your vehicle endures on a daily basis will affect the frequency of how often your cabin air filter should be replaced. Depending on where you live, the debris in the air can vary drastically not simply based on geography just besides based on seasonality. For example, if you live in a dry out, dusty expanse such every bit the desert, yous're going to accept substantially more grit enter your vehicle, so your cabin air filter volition piece of work harder to make clean out that contaminated air before entering your machine. If you suffer from seasonal allergies, peculiarly those that are more prevalent in the Midwest, South, and Southwest, you probably are familiar with the challenges of breathing in air that is loaded with pollen and other allergens.

Seasonality can also take a great result because pollens and spores, including mold spores, are released into the air at different times of the year. For case, Spring is peculiarly bad for pollen, while Fall is especially bad due to debris and dust resulting from crushed, fallen leaves which end upward in the air around roads, ultimately inbound your vehicle.

Another challenging environment that millions of people find themselves in is heavy urban situations where the air quality is extremely poor due to the sheer book of vehicles on the route, and a big amount of dust and dirt that gets kicked up as a result. Anyone who has taken a long commute in Southern California on a hot summer morning time can attest to the poor air quality that'south present on a busy, commuter forenoon. Your cabin air filter is designed to remove these contaminants from the breathable air inside your vehicle. Which is why replacing a clogged cabin filter frequently is essential because when y'all don't, y'all'll end up breathing in all the nasty debris trapped in the filter. Yuck! Continue in mind that not all motel filters remove gaseous pollutants, in fact, entry-level cabin filters are designed to remove only dust. However, some premium motel air filters like PUREFLOW with four phase filtration technology, specifically designed to trap 99 percent of mold, pollen, grit, harmful gases, bad odors, and also inactivating viruses and bacteria.

So, to recap, the more astringent your driving conditions, the more oft yous'll need to replace your motel air filter. This could be every 10,000 miles or every 5,000 miles! Equally soon as y'all feel a weakened airflow in your vehicle's HVAC system, it'due south time to supersede that nasty old filter.

Vehicle Usage

Not all vehicles are used the aforementioned mode by their owners, which affects how often the interior air filter needs to be changed. For example, if you lot're a solo driver and you don't have other people in the auto very often, your cabin air filter should get less clogged considering there are fewer people inside your car. On the flip side, someone who owns a minivan or SUV that drives their children and their children'southward friends will definitely have more than dust and debris that flows through the HVAC system.

Some other strong consideration for more than frequent air filter changes is people who ain pets and go along these pets inside their vehicles. Pet dander and pet hair float in the air and volition be pulled into your vehicle's motel air filter during normal usage. So, if you have pets in your car on a regular footing, your air filter will get clogged more than rapidly. Vehicle type and usage are often compounded with the driving weather condition noted above and these issues tin can stack on meridian of ane another to create a state of affairs where cabin air filters get muddy quickly.

Standard Maintenance Recommendations

Every single manufacturer lists out a comprehensive maintenance routine for their vehicles. Cabin air filters are among the items that are supposed to exist regularly changed as role of a comprehensive maintenance programme, only this simple part is oftentimes forgotten behind other larger maintenance items like oil changes and fluid changes.

If you have your vehicle regularly serviced at a dealership, they are likely to recommend that your cabin air filter is changed at specific intervals merely will charge yous heavily for the replacement. For instance, Toyota recommends a cabin air filter be changed every 10,000 miles. On boilerplate, this will cost over $50 to exist installed. However, if you have your vehicle maintenance completed outside of the dealership or if y'all do it on your own, you are likely to forget that your cabin air filter needs to be replaced regularly. In fact, many owners of vehicles assume that the engine air filter and the cabin air filter are the same thing.

In essence, post-obit your vehicle's maintenance recommendations may be sufficient but at that place are several situations (such as those noted above) where your vehicle's maintenance recommendations could be junior and exit your filter dirty or clogged for longer than it should be. You lot must besides consider that if you are paying to get your filter replaced, this cost is greatly enhanced due to the rates that near dealerships and service stations charge.

We'll talk about this in another article but even for the most bones DIY'ers, replacing your cabin air filter is something that anybody tin practice at domicile.

Exhale Better Air

Equally with whatsoever other production yous buy, not all cabin filters are created equal. Quality motel filters offer a level of protection to drivers and passengers that exceed the industry standard. PureFlow cabin air filters utilize 4 unique components to achieve make clean air quality inside your vehicle:

Particulate filtration media captures and eliminates particulate matter of dust and pollen with an electrostatic charge.
Blistering soda to blot bad smells resulting from mold and smoke.
Activated charcoal traps mold and harmful gases – e.g. carbon-monoxide, sulfur dioxide.
Antibacterial MicroTechnology that employs both silver and copper ions with proven, long-lasting germicidal effectiveness.

Take a look at our filter search tool to find the right filter for your car, truck, van, or SUV! Or read our blog to stay updated on the latest of filtering technology.