How Often Should You Change Your Car Engine Air Filter?

Car Junkie - How Often Should You Change Your Car Engine Air Filter - In many cases we have found that every car, in some parts, has a different recommended maintenance timetable, so as in the case of how often a car owner should change his car engine air filter. The air filter itself is indeed a crucial part of an engine, since without it the fuel will certainly get trouble burning. By several automakers like Hyundai and Ford, it's said that you should at least change your engine air filter by the time your car reaches thirty thousand miles, while a longer interval comes from Chevrolet, advised consumers to change their Chevy's engine air filters in every forty-five thousand miles.

engine air filter replacement schedule
how often do you need to change air filter | air filter replacement

Experienced drivers seem to be aware better about this, checking the air filter condition regularly to make sure it's fine. Most engines have their filters easy to access, anyway. The easiest way to sign is by looking at the surrounding - when you find the edges get too blackened, now you may consider to replace the air filter.

The truth is that abundant stain around the filter will gradually suck the engine day by day. The worst might cause  your gasoline or diesel engine gets its performance downgraded. That dust can significantly damage the metal elements of the engine - gnawing at the key parts such as cylinders and bearings.

If we have to measure the time, in general, your engine air filter lasts at least a year. And sure, if you drive more rarely, it must end in two or even three years. Be aware in which some repair shops very often offer you to get a new air filter every time you have your car's oil changed. But the truth is that you have got that a few months back, for example, just shake it off.

A lot of research, however, has showed that a choked engine filter does not give any big issues to the fuel efficiency. Instead, it likely slows the engine down in acceleration up to 10 percent. While getting noticed by the  slower acceleration sounds a bit imaginary, so you won't probably realize it. In short, the best way to familiarize yourselves on how often you should change your car engine filter is by inspecting the filter regularly and paying attention to your manual book which can tell you when the air filter should be changed systematically.

Buying a car with a budget of only RM65000 ++ in Malaysia

I was thankful that once we came back to Malaysia, a lot of people have been helping us out, especially our parents. Initially, we used my mother-in-law's old Proton Wira and later on was my dad's old Wira, which I am still using. Since both my wife and I are working and not at the same place, we needed to have two cars as I could not send and pick here up from her office. We start looking around for cars here and we decided to live within our means and set out a budget of RM 65000 for the new car. My wife also had one condition - that the car must be automatic as she was still recovering from her leg fracture. We also did not want a small Perodua car and we came up with a list of cars (in the so called popular B-segment) which we could buy with our limited budget, namely:

1. Honda City (starting at RM75800)
2. Toyota Vios (starting at RM73213)
3. Nissan Almera (starting at RM66827)and
4. Proton Preve (Starting RM61471)

Looking at the list, we realised that we could only afford the Proton and if we wanted a better car, we would have to increase our budget.
After driving a Volvo S40 in the UK for several years, we were not really looking forward to driving a Proton. However, the more research I did about the Proton Preve, the more impressed I was with the model. We went to see it at the Proton showroom near our house in Taman Megah, PJ and we decided that the Proton Preve Premium version was what we wanted. However, it was still beyond our budget at around RM72K (approx. £13650).

We were very fortunate because Proton suddenly announced a Merdeka/ Hari Raya discount of 5% across their complete range of models. This suddenly brought the Proton Preve Premium version within our range at around RM68,000 (solid colours) and really great value as it has loads of features not present in the basic Honda, Toyota and Nissan models. This includes a Turbo engine, touch screen with built-in sat-nav, 6 air bags, push button start, automatic lights and wipers, etc.. The offer also included 3 years free service and range of gifts including free in-car wifi hub with access for a year, free SmartTAG, full tank fuel, etc.

So that's the story in brief about how my wife ended up with a Proton Preve 1.6 CFE CVT Premium car powered by the Campro CFE 1561cc turbo engine with 7 speed ProTronic transmission and mounted on great looking 17" alloy wheels with 215/45 R17 tyres.


Watch out for a more detailed review of the car later.

(updated 22 October 2014).