Could a new airfilter make that much of a diff ?

[chefwong]

Placebo or not ?
Changed airfilters. It was dirty *typical NYC air quality* but not terrible...

Since the housing was open, I went to town and cleaned up the inside. Some shallow spots had sand/dirt accumulated and was hard. I went to town, loosening it up and vac/wiped the interior housing clean.

Dunno if it's the new filter, but todays drive sure felt smooth...Placebo or not ;-)

 

[Merkava_4]

I've got one of those Fram AirHogs. There's something about them that the dirt doesn't stick to them. It's like a Teflon coated fry pan. I just take the vacuum cleaner with the brush attachment and vacuum it off about every 3 months or so. It looks like new after I vacuum it.

 

[Donald]

I say changing the air filter nor any vacuuming you did helped how your engine is running.

If the air filter was very very dirty it could somewhat block air flow. You list it as "not terrible" so while it was probably a good idea to change it (and vacuum) I suspect the engine was getting adequate air flow with the old filter.

You could always pop back in the old filter for a test.

 

[mechtech2]

Not only dirt, but fiber damage from water will block flow. You can't really see visually if the flow is blocked.

 

[MarkC]

You should change it every 10K no matter what it looks like.

 

[southernjeeper]

yes, a new air filter will make a difference if u replace it. If i was running a normal paper filter than my K&N filter I would change out the air filter every 3 to 5 months. It depends on if u drive in dusty areas or off-road.

OR better yet if you can't remember the last time you changed your filter CHANGE IT!

 

[Virtuoso]

I have about 32k on the STP filter in my Saturn and it looks "ok". Can probably push it to 50. Last one I changed out @ 25k miles and couldn't tell a difference in power, MPG, anything..

 

[southernjeeper]

it depends mainly on how hard you have your foot on the gas but in the long run better filtration is better in my book as i wouldn't want to have a paper filter push out 50,000miles...

that's just me

 

[Terry]

chef, YOU KNOW IT DOES! Air filtration and getting uninterrupted CLEAN air flow is critical!

 

[rpn453]

I'm going with placebo. It doesn't sound like it was bad enough to affect engine operation.

I had almost 30K miles on my Mazda's air filter when it gave me my best single-tank mileage. I changed it at 30K in accordance with my maintenance schedule, but it probably wasn't necessary.

 

[Axe Man]

It's possible and I have a situation where it did make a difference.

Wife's Taurus developed a slight "idle hunt" after a hot start. For a few minutes after a hot start you could hear and see the idle bouncing around by about 50 - 100 RPM. My first thought was a vacuum leak but no DTC's were being set by the ECU. Checking the service records I discovered that I forgot to change the air filter. The current filter had 40K miles on it! Changed filter pronto and idle hunt went away.