We all love our vehicles until it’s time for maintenance. The average American spends $1,186 on car maintenance each year, which means there’s a lot of room to save.
Luckily, you can save a lot of money by doing some things yourself, especially when it comes to replacing your cabin filter. Fortunately, it’s likely the easiest fix on your car! Here’s how to change a cabin air filter.
How to Change a Cabin Air Filter
If you don’t already know, the cabin air filter is the air filter for inside the cabin, and the engine air filter is, you guessed it, for the air intake in your engine. For this reason, replacing the cabin air filter won’t help you keep your car for longer, save your engine, or anything else. However, it will help your health.
The cabin air filter is your only defense against the pathogens you pick up while you drive. Whatever goes through your filter will end up in your lungs, so changing it regularly is important.
Don’t worry. You won’t need any tools, you won’t need to pop the hood, and you won’t even need to do all that much! This is one of the easiest maintenance tasks on a vehicle.
Since it filters the air in the cabin, you’re able to access it from the cabin itself. Sitting in one of the front seats, open your glove compartment. If it’s overfilled, move some of the stuff out of the way, as anything hanging over the top will fall out.
In most cars, there will be two tabs on either side holding the glove compartment in place. Reach on the outside walls of your glove compartment (these should be plastic), position your fingers close to the back end, and pinch inward to pull in the tabs.
From there, pull the glove box all the way out and you should see a space for your cabin air filter. Open the tab, pull out the old filter (noting its position) and replace it with the new one. Throw out the old one, close it up, and you’re all set!
How Often to Change Cabin Air Filters?
We’ve seen plenty of dirty cabin filters that leave people breathing in many pathogens as they drive. It’s a cheap and simple maintenance routine that takes a minute or two to complete. If you haven’t done this before, you may be surprised at how dirty it is.
For that reason, we suggest replacing your filters every 15,000 miles or every year to be safe. You can even find discount filters online, making it super affordable to change. Once you know how to do it, you’ll never pay a mechanic again!
Breathe Easy
Now that you know how to change a cabin air filter, get yours changed today and start breathing easier! It’s a very simple and very important maintenance routine.
Change yours today and stay up to date with our latest DIY tips!
