Nissan Sentra Cabin Air Filter

Problem:

The inside of your 2006 Nissan Sentra starts smelling musty and it won't go away.  You also don't think you don't have a cabin air filter and therefore haven't changed it in 7 years.

Solution:

Realize you have an air filter and replace it ASAP.  Mine was quite a bit worse than the one shown above, I wish I had taken a picture of it.  It was about filled to the brim with dirt, dust, and leaves after 7 years of not being replaced.

Musings:

Disclaimer:

Let me start off with a disclaimer, that I am not a car person.  However, car issues do affect my daily life and for some reason they are coming to mind so that's why I'm writing about them first.

Why I didn't need an air filter under any circumstances:

So, a 2006 Nissan Sentra is a decent car that I like a lot, but it's no luxury car.  I was under the impression that only higher-end cars have cabin air filters, leading me to laugh at regular auto places when they offered to replace my cabin air filter, because I thought I didn't have one.

Whether urban legends or not, I had gained through anecdotes the understanding that many car places will try to rip you off, up to and including telling you your air filters were dirty and bringing you a fake one to demonstrate this.  In the stories, the gotcha moment was when the hero turned down the replacement and found that his air filter was blue, but they showed him a WHITE one!

Anyway, replacing a regular air filter is simple enough that I do it myself, so I was also used to saying no anyway.

So, pass through the years with me of always having the air smell funny in the car and having my wife complaining about it.  But you know what?  I didn't treat the car *that* well and we did live in Florida at the time so I figured we had a little mold/mildew issue.  I certainly wasn't going to pay for a clean-up though, the smell was only somewhat musty and not worth whatever outrageous cost an automotive place would probably charge to dismantle the front section of the car to clean it out.

The Discovery:

One day, we replaced my wife's 2004 Chevy Aveo with a 2008 Ford Escape.  Best swap ever, I have stories to write about that car.  Also, we apparently only buy cars with even years, so I guess my next car will have to be a 2010.  After purchase, I started doing routine maintenance such as replacing the wipers, air filters, and having the battery checked.  Since we were dealing with such a fancy car (may not be to some people, but it will be the nicest car we've owned for probably many years to come), I realized it might have a cabin air filter and sure enough it did.

As I'm standing there at Advance Auto Parts, I'm looking at the screen as the cashier is looking up parts for both of our cars and I see cabin air filter pop up under Nissan Sentra.  I ask him about it and he doesn't know off the top of his head, but we head in a couple of menu options and it looks like my car has one.  What the heck, I believe it, so I buy cabin air filters for both cars.  As a fun fact, when I opened up the Escape, it had been living for 4 years without any air filter.  Lazy chumps!  Even my cheap little Nissan came with a filter from the facory!

The Nitty-Gritty:

When I get home, I look up the process online.  It's pretty simple and you can see quite a few youtube videos about it.  Basically, you start by opening the glove box and pulling in the tabs you see in the back.  They can be quite resistant, but be assured that it's just friction.  No turning is required, but it can be helpful in overcoming the friction.  When you get the pins fully pulled in, you should be able to pull out the glove box entirely.  Then you should use a Philips head screwdriver to remove the 4 screws at the top of the hole, all the same size.  The middle two are holding on the bracket used to keep the glove box shut, so once you've removed those screws, slide the bracket off.

Now you need to pull out the large plastic insert piece and surrounds the interior of the hole and then unclip the air filter cover at the back.  It should be pretty obvious, it has two catches with words like "Lift" or something like that.  Behind it is the air filter so now you just need to replace it and redo the previous steps in reverse.

Like I mentioned earlier, the first time I replaced this was with a 7 year delay.  The filter was absolutely disgusting and literally filled to the bring with dirt and leaves.  I have no idea how the air actually got through it, maybe it went around somehow.  Now I replace it about once a year and while it doesn't need it that often, it's usually some sort of gray color so I figure it's not totally unnecessary.