Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Branches New England I think I may have the new record

for the dirtiest cabin air filter. No pics, but man, that thing was totally black. I've owned the car three years and never replaced it, and who knows before that.

Also realized that the air tube that comes up from the bottom of the engine bay and feeds into the engine air filter housing was cracked at the point where it connects with the filter. Engine bay, meet duct tape. The already broken plastic squeeze connector on the air tube from the PCV valve to the accordion tube finally fell off, but it doesn't seem to move around on there, so I'm not going to bother. Removed the MAF and squirted some non-chlorinated brake cleaner in there, seemed to help the get-up-and-go a bit. Changed out the Mobil 1 synthetic. Underneath the car, noticed a few tiny leaks here and there. Suspension, despite a near rebuild over a year ago, is starting to clunk again.

She's gettin' old. Gettin' old. But I still love her.

Dumb Question??
Do all Contours/Mystiques have these filters? I ask cause I've seen it listed in my Haynes. I have also looked inside the cowl(without taking it apart) but didn't see anything. So if they all have them I've never changed mine

I believe all do ..

I took a few (high res) pics of mine when I swapped it out. You'll see the gasket material had worn away so much that I was getting a huge puddle on my passenger side floor every time it rained (took a while to figure out where the water was coming in!).

http://users.wpi.edu/~mjg/98se/abwamo/

mine needs this baaaaadddllyyyy.....

my passenger floor is constantly soaked.. and during the winter its frozen solid. makes the car have a not-so-fresh scent and doesnt help with the fogging up issues.

ford sent me a coupon...$35 for the works...asynthetic oil chance, rotate/inspect tires, cabin and air filters...inspect brakes, abttery, hoses, top off fluids.

i definetly think ima take em up on this offer since its been too cold to do it my own out in the open and all. mines probly black as all hell i havent touched it ever :-x

It's not the cabin air filter that causes the leaking - it's the gasket for the filter's housing. Ford will probably charge you triple to fix it. For me it was a quickie job with some $2.99 replacement material from Home Depot. It's like 50 degrees out today and sunny; considering the time involved (<1/2 hour) it's worthwhile to get done it out of the way today. Your car (and its interior) will thank you.

I've gotten the ones from AAP, the Purolator ones, and they work fine. Still, those suckers are $17 a piece. I replace mine annually, usually in late April/early May, after pollen level finally go down.

the worst In cabin air filter i have ever seen was on a saab this summer.
the filter is under the dash int eh center console.
when i pulled it out about 2 pounds of dirt leaves and crud came with it. it took me 10 minutes to vacuum up all the crap.

To chime back in, the replacement I put in there was a Bosch unit I bought at Autozone for around $18. It's pretty flimsy compared to an engine air filter--I mashed it in a few times while getting it back in there, had to kind of fold it back straight. It'll be hard to tell the difference for a few days--my customary oil drippings on the exhaust manifold have to burn off first! Funnels? Who needs 'em!!!

you should spray some simple green on the oils spills and hose it off before you start the engine, then you wont have to worry about the oil burning off and possibly catching fire.