anyone notice RPM or shfiting behavior changes in their ride after changing the engine air filters? i went to the dealer and bought 2 OEM nissan filters, i dont have any cold air intakes or anything of the sort but it seems like to me the car rides differently after the change..... does the ECU need to get used to the new filters?

when i say it behaves differently, i am not necesarily sayin its bad.... i just didnt think something simple like air filter change can change the profile of the car.

 

Nope

 

Of course if your car filter was that dirty or you were in need of an oil change it can definately effect how you car ran. By replacing them its allowing in more air and you should feel a difference.

 

Handle better? Absolutely not.. however it might feel a bit peppier depending on how dirty your original filters were. If anything, it shouldn't be anything you notice. It's probably just your mind playing those tricks again.

 

Handling? Not a chance.

Performance could have been impacted, but it's unlikely it was bad enough to feel (except maybe in your mind) unless you had to unnest birds and squirrels to get the old one out.

Most likely your dirty filter would have been felt in your MPG unless it was just caked with road grime and dirt.

 

How dirty were your filters to begin with?

 

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here they are... according to the maintenance records, the dealer replaced them at 23,410 miles (before i bought the car) and now i have 33,500..... so it got like this at 10,000 miles. from what i read in the manual, air filters are supposed to be replaced at 15k. i dunno if this is considered really dirty, but i figured i'd do it anyway since they were 15 a piece.

is this really dirty or is this average? maybe the dealership i bought the car from lied about it being replaced?

 

That looks pretty filthy to me. I've never let my filter get that dirty. I change my vehicles religiously at 15k but never seen my filters that grimey ever. IMO mileage is not that important but the road condition you drive in. If you live around a very dusty, humid environment, you should definitely change them out more often. Like you said they are only ~$15 a piece, so do routine checks to see how dirty they get as you drive. If you inspect and find that it's time for new ones, replace them as you go. It's never bad to change them early.

 

If you plan on driving the car for awhile you can always go w/ a K&N filter. I beleive they are $60 for each x2 so $120. It would be worth it if you are going to have the car for several years. And to answer your question, yes those do look really dirty, I think your filters have emphysema!

 

Lol nyc smog got the best of my filters.... from the reaction I am getting this is really really dirty.

My guess is its the fumes from a truck or something I was behind.... the filter was oily as well.

 

They look dirty, but certainly not the worst I've ever seen (and I wouldn't think enough to cause a night and day difference in performance). DO you drive in a particularly dusty area? One thing you can do to stretch their useful life is to rotate them 180* in the housing after 7k miles or so. (Notice how the dirt is concentrated in one area on the filters.)

 

Ahh that's a good idea... never even thought about rotating it. Thanks for the tip!

 

This is NOT a good idea. You're going to blow the dirt collected on the used side of the filter directly into your intake.

 

No, he's talking about rotating it in place, not reversing the filter so that the collected dirt faces the throttle body... its impossible to mount the filter backwards because of the rubber trim around the edges.

 

Thank you