With the help of 'Skudmissile' John (thanks mate ) I performed the 'official SUK fix' of lubing up the gearbox mount yesterday (which has silenced the occasional knock in my front suspension by the feel of it) and obviously to get to the part in question I had to remove my battery and airbox.

In addition to the battery being a nightmare to remove with that silly case round it I opened up my airbox and to my horror found a lump of coal in there rather than an air filter. I think basically it's never been changed due to the fact it's 40k is due next week and they only get done then. I've seen some bad air filters in my time but this was hideous.

It got me thinking, 40k is surely too long for an air filter change? Perhaps 20k is more sensible like when you change the pollen filter at the same time? Aside from fitting a green panel and washing / oiling it every 5 mins, what are peoples recommendations regarding refreshing the standard one? Perhaps doing it ever 10k is a bit excessive but judging by the state of my old one 40k is too long an interval too.

Chris.

Hi Cris

We agree with you here

We replace the OEM filter every 20k now

I have a Pipercross filter in my car

It depends on the environment the car's used in. If you've done 40k city miles sucking up exhaust fumes or you live somewhere really dusty or dirty then 40k would be too long but for normal use I'd imagine it's within normal parameters.

Remember that the customer pays for replacements and the warranty is an unlimited mileage one (up to 2 years at least), so if it were likely to cause problems then Skoda would recommend it be changed more frequently - it's no cost to them.

HGV's do much, much larger distances between filter changes and it causes no problems whatsoever. The important thing is that you follow the service schedule, it's there for a reason and the people that make these decisions make them for good reason - lots of money has been spent and lots of research has been done making sure the service schedule is correct for the car.

That said, they're about

My car will be due its 20k service before the end of the year and i'll be telling them to change the airfilter then (and double checking they have afterwards).

I also completely agree that 40,000 is too long, I replaced SWMBO's at 40,000 & it was manky ! :eek:

I saw an immediate improvement in fuel consumption after replacing it and will be replacing it every 15 - 20k now !

I'm the second owner and before me the car was from Cardiff judging by the service book. Not too smoggy really and all I've done in it is motorway miles to work and back. I think I agree with Sarah and Neily though, 20k might be what I go for next. A lube every 10k and a full service every 20. Fuel filter may be ok till 40k though although they're a little harder to inspect.

The vRS being a high performance diesel is also a very air hungry car and so it puzzles me why the intervals are so long. It'll hamper performance and economy for it to be clogged so it only makes sense to change it more regularly.

Perhaps that's why my car was a little sooty recently.......

Got car at 15.8k. Changed air filter at 16.5k - was pretty grey. 40k IMHO far too long for air filter. Will be every 20k from now on.

The vRS being a high performance diesel is also a very air hungry car and so it puzzles me why the intervals are so long. It'll hamper performance and economy for it to be clogged so it only makes sense to change it more regularly.

Perhaps that's why my car was a little sooty recently.......

It may be marketed as a 'warm hatch' but i don't think the PD130 can be regarded as 'high performance', imo its a pretty 'normal perforamance' engine used in a wide range of normal cars, just in this case it in something more sporty.

As for why the filter change is so far apart will be to try and keep service costs down.

I'm just comparing it to diesels of old.....1.9 diesels used to be about 90bhp, the PD130 is of course a fair bit more than that.

Diesels on the whole though require lots of air.....they run so lean and don't have a throttle plate to control the incoming air and so they need to have as much air readily available on the intake hence people fit the PD160 pipe etc. On the standard setup having a clogged air filter can only make matters worse. It just surprised me how dirty the thing was at 39,300 miles.

I found even 20k was too long for a paper filter and, because of the mileage I'm currently racking up, I switched to a washable one which works out cheaper than changing the paper element every 10k.

Chris

No problem HTH, did it cure the knocking?

got my car back today, you have a pm buddy

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john

So with the pipercross and green filter filters do they just go in dry with NO oil whatsoever?

When you buy them they are pre-oiled. If you clean it, you need the (matching) oil and re-oil them.

Don't overdo the re-oiling as that tends to be the MAF-killing stuff.

I have bought a paper filter as I have no cleaning stuff here and the car was smoking like hell. After 10k the paper filter looked BAD, the green filter is probably not much better off in that situation either.

Thing is, I'd rather clean it more often (have two green filters, one for the cleaning session, one for the car). That said, paper filter was the option I had to use this time

the green ones are oiled, iirc the pipercross are foam and need no oil.

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john

I had a pipercross on the corsa and it came with a dirt retentive oil

The Pipercross one is a special "dry" foam one which does not need oiling. The Green and K&N both require oil. Not had any probs with running a Green or K&N in any of my cars

Chris

With the help of 'Skudmissile' John (thanks mate ) I performed the 'official SUK fix' of lubing up the gearbox mount yesterday (which has silenced the occasional knock in my front suspension by the feel of it) and obviously to get to the part in question I had to remove my battery and airbox.

Chris.

I had mine done last week in the dealers and after 2 days the knocking was back and a bit worse. Its going back in monday so they can decide what to do. Grease her up again I suppose?!

I have bought a paper filter as I have no cleaning stuff here and the car was smoking like hell. After 10k the paper filter looked BAD, the green filter is probably not much better off in that situation either.

If paper was bad then I'd have thought the Green filter would have been terminal - last time I looked the care instructions with a Green panel said to clean it every 5,000km! :eek:

I had mine done last week in the dealers and after 2 days the knocking was back and a bit worse. Its going back in monday so they can decide what to do. Grease her up again I suppose?!

Perhaps they didn't do it right? We blathered mine in grease.....loads of it.

The area that needs greasing is not obvious. Mine's been fine several days and a couple of hundred miles later.

Perhaps they didn't do it right? We blathered mine in grease.....loads of it.

The area that needs greasing is not obvious. Mine's been fine several days and a couple of hundred miles later.

I can confirm the blathering bit

Good stuff that silicone grease, it has a high melting point so hopefully wont melt away with the high engine temps.

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john

I've just bought a Fabia vRS with 27000 miles it's got a delaer service history complete with the last owners invoices. I checked the service book and the invoice and Skoda charged the previous owner for a new filter at 21000 miles. So I took it out for a look, like yours it was a lump of charcoal, no way was it replaced 6000 miles ago. Which would explain why my car was smoking like a chimney. The dealer in question is Farmer's in Nottingham. What is it with car dealers, I've yet to meet an honest one.....double check everything they say they've done!

It could well have done 6k miles - they get filthy very quickly!!!

Chris

I've just bought a Fabia vRS with 27000 miles it's got a delaer service history complete with the last owners invoices. I checked the service book and the invoice and Skoda charged the previous owner for a new filter at 21000 miles. So I took it out for a look, like yours it was a lump of charcoal, no way was it replaced 6000 miles ago. Which would explain why my car was smoking like a chimney. The dealer in question is Farmer's in Nottingham. What is it with car dealers, I've yet to meet an honest one.....double check everything they say they've done!

Funny that, I bought my car from there.

The air filter is not normally changed on the vRS at 20k. 40k is the normal interval......the fact they charged someone for it though would suggest it has been done though unless they're lying. 6k though is not long though. Depends on the type of driving the car does as to how mucky it gets. This year with all the rain I would expect filters to last a little longer as the dust in the air is reduced.

Just do the paper one every 10k and you should be fine