- Joined
- Oct 19, 2025
- Messages
- 229
Air Filter life span
- Thread starter vwthingman
- Start date
Yeah, here in MO we get a green pollen layer noticeable on the vehicles.
I seem to be around 100k or so. Not much for dirt roads around me. I think it's supposed to be sooner but I'm not sure I have ever noticed.
I do wonder though about our hybrid, and maybe some other cars. Used to be, as the filter plugged up, power might drop, but one could compensate by simply using more throttle. The ECU would keep a/f mixture happy. WOT power might be low but how many really go WOT all that often? but to reduce pumping losses I suspect cars are playing more with valve timing so as to run larger throttle openings, and perhaps mpg might finally start getting impacted by the air filter restriction. And a hybrid is more apt to only use the engine under high load conditions (eeking out the max in efficiency). A single digit percentage is harder to see at 20mpg but it starts to get more noticeable around 50mpg.
I do wonder though about our hybrid, and maybe some other cars. Used to be, as the filter plugged up, power might drop, but one could compensate by simply using more throttle. The ECU would keep a/f mixture happy. WOT power might be low but how many really go WOT all that often? but to reduce pumping losses I suspect cars are playing more with valve timing so as to run larger throttle openings, and perhaps mpg might finally start getting impacted by the air filter restriction. And a hybrid is more apt to only use the engine under high load conditions (eeking out the max in efficiency). A single digit percentage is harder to see at 20mpg but it starts to get more noticeable around 50mpg.
