Car Cabin Air Filter

Quoted from HowStuffWorks "What is activated charcoal and why is it used in filters?"

Basically, Charcoal Filters are used to help 'purify' the air. Well, reduce odors from air source.

 

Well put Keiichi

 

To clarify a little more, the standard air filter just reduces particles in the air, like dust, pollen and the like. But smells, like fumes, bacterial odors are normally not caught by the filter as those are chemical signatures that our noses respond to. As described above, the charcoal reacts to the chemical, absorbing the chemical signature and reducing the 'odor' by a bit more.

Air fresheners are basically odor maskers, or just different chemical signatures to help overwhelm the more obvious chemical signatures, Febreeze is a mixture of a chemical signature and chemical odor absorber too.

 

When I tried to look up 87139-07010, it supercedes to the 87139-YZZ08 part #, which is the standard non-charcoal replacement filter that dealers carry. I know that some of the Toyota YZZ parts are service replacement parts and not factory. Has anyone tried ordering the true factory part (87139-07010)?

I am getting prices of $13 for non-charcoal one and $25 for the charcoal one from Camelback Toyota.

Thanks.

 

I did a bit of research.

87139-07010 was indeed the original filter that came with our vehicle. This filter is also shared by some Lexus models. However, a picture of this filter from a lexus site does not show it to be carbon -- jjprius, can you confirm?

Lexus Parts World - Lexus Floor Mats and Accessories

As I had suspected, the 87139-YZZ08 filter is the el-cheapo "service replacement" filter that most dealers stock and use. If you have seen one of these in person, you will know how cheap it looks and feels compared to the original filter. Similarly, the 87319-YZZ10 charcoal filter is a charcoal service replacement filter, but is not the same as the factory filter (as jjprius described earlier).

More info here:

Replaced Cabin Air Filter... - Page 4 - Club Lexus Forums

 

$25 seems a fair price for a charcoal filter. It cost more here.

Problem I found is the work required to access the filter. I ended up getting a piece of charcoal filter for kitchen extractor fans from the local hardware store.

It takes me half an hour to get the filter out of the car and back in plus a minute or two to cut a piece out of the kitchen filter. The kitchen filter cost me less the $10 and is good for four or six car filter, depending how accurate I can cut it, any knife will do.
Airflow is not significantly restricted but the nasty smells stay outside.

 

Is the cabin filter in a different location on cars over there? On US-spec cars, it takes no more than a few minutes to wrestle the glovebox off.

 

No, it is me being slow

 

Haven't changed the cabin air filter in my v yet, but I should check it soon.
Just wanted to throw this out there - in previous cars, I've made my own cabin air filters out of household furnace filters. You can buy the nicest, super-allergen-reducing furnace filter available at your big box store, cut it into 4 or 6 pieces, and you'll almost certainly come out ahead, in terms of cost and filtration, vs. buying "premium" replacement cabin air filters. I'm not too concerned about charcoal in my filters - I'd be surprised if the quantity of charcoal in one of those filters would remain effective for the year or more you leave them in. I'd much rather do a GOOD job of cleaning out the particulates, i.e. dust and pollen.
Just my 2 cents...
Andy

 

There's probably no real benefit that you'd ever notice. Charcoal traps certain gases. So, if someone throws a tear gas grenade into your car, if you recirculate the air through your charcoal filter for a long enough period of time, then the charcoal should clear the tear gas from the air. Gas masks work because they have charcoal filters. Painters often wear specialized gas masks with charcoal filters that filter out some of the volitile chemical gases produced by the paint. It's hard to think of any gas that might get into your car that you'd want a charcoal filter to remove. And, even if such a gas got into the car, it would take so long for the air in the car to pass through the charcoal filter that it's unlikely to remove the bad gas fast enough to do any good. The car's filter is probably more useful for filtering out dust, and if the filter has a lot of charcoal in it, then the dust filtering system probably wouldn't work as well as it should. So, given a choice, I'd use a filter without charcoal. You should be able to find out more about charcoal filtering by doing a google search for "activated charcoal."

 

It was indeed a carbon filter.

 

I bought my 2008 with 44,000 miles in Feb 2011. This week, I changed the cabin air filter with 101,000 miles on it. The air filter was BLACK. I didn't realize there was an odor coming from the vents as a result of it being filthy, and now the air smells fresh. Took about 30 seconds to change it from start to finish, and cost me about $6.00 buying it on eBay.

I should've changed it MILES ago.

 

I brought my 2011 prius in to a Toyota dealer for my 20,000 mile complimentary service...They told & showed me my cabin filter had to be changed...which it did...but, they wanted $60.00 to do it..I said no thanks...I got on a web site that explained how to find & change it myself....I also found out that Autozone sells a cabin filter for $13.99...I like your Ebay cost better...Thanks