Saturday, February 2, 2013

Honda Odyssey Cabin Air Filter Change

It had been awhile since I changed the cabin air filter in Dixie's van so I figured I would do it this weekend along with the transmission fluid and filter. It's an easy job to do but may sound a little complicated if you just read the service manual. Here it is step by step with pictures. The filter lives in front of the glove box. The dealer wants 32 dollars just for this filter not including installation. I bought a WIX filter from amazon. It was about 12 bucks I think with free shipping. I just found out that amazon sells car parts. They have great prices and they sell good brand name stuff. I like WIX filters a lot so I didn't hesitate to buy it.
 The first thing to do is remove the glove box. I will warn you right now, if you are doing this on a car that is not yours tell the owner you need to remove their stuff from the glove box. That will give them fair warning to remove stuff they might not want seen by someone. I have seen some interesting stuff in a glove box before. Back to the job, empty the glove box and you will see 2 rollers on the sides of the box.
 Here they are. They just pop right out with a couple clips. Just remove them completely and then close the glove box.
There are 2 screws that hold the bottom of the box on. Remove the 2 screws and then open the glove box and remove the whole glove box assembly.
 If you have never had the filter replaced, there will be a plastic brace that goes across the dash. It runs right along side the metal brace that you can see in the picture. You will need to get a hack saw or some other cutting device to remove this piece. Mine has already been cut out so you can see where I am pointing to shows the cut.
From here there are 2 bolts and 2 screws to remove. This shows the  screw and the bolt removed from one side of the metal cross brace. There is the same setup on the other side. Just remove the fasteners.
 The whole metal brace will now come out.
 Here is the metal brace being removed. You now have access to the compartment that the filter is in.
There is a plastic door that covers the filter. It has 2 clips, one on the top and one on the bottom. Just unclip it and remove it. You'll see the filter now.  
 Slide the filter out. Ours was pretty dirty as you can see.
 Take the time to vacuum out where the filter sits. They are usually a mess. Ours was full of leaves and stuff.
When it's all cleaned out, slide the new filter in. Make sure you get the filter in correctly. There are arrows showing which way the air flow for the filter goes and the outer box that the filter goes in shows arrows for the airflow there also. Just match them up and your good.
 Install the door for the filter.
 From here it's just putting everything back together.

Install the metal brace with the 2 screws and 2 bolts. The bolts (gold ones) go on the inner holes and the screws (black ones) in the outer holes.
 Put the glove box in place and close it. It will be held in place by the latch and allows you to install the 2 bottom screws that hold on the lower part of the glove box.
 Now just install the 2 glove box stops. They just clip right in. Put everything back in the glove box and your done. Easy as pie.
I think Honda recommends replacing this filter every 30,000 miles. We had 34,000 miles on ours since we had changed it and it was pretty gross. I think I will change it every year from now on. It's worth the 12 bucks to do it.

Tomorrow I will post the procedure for changing the transmission fluid and filter on a Honda Odyssey. I did that today also and took lots of pictures so it should be a decent post. I will also show the filter I took off the van and what I found inside it. (I cut it open and inspected it). See you then!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

High-priced products don’t always mean that they’re the best in the market. It’s good to have a trusted brand that’s cheap and works perfectly in your car. Also, I agree with you that trying to follow the service manual is a little bit complicated than actually seeing how it’s done. I remember that time when I needed to replace the air filter of my car and had a hard time following the manual. I ended up calling for a mechanic who got the job done properly. But thank you for imparting the knowledge with us. I think I want to try doing it again. Wish me luck!

Enoch Ross