Cousin_Dupree

My 2007 E350 was 4 years old last month. Looking @ page 50 of the Maintenance Booklet I see that MB recommends the Service 2 at the 52,000 mile or 4 year mark, whichever comes first. Service 2 is replacing the engine air cleaners. But, my E350 only has 10,000 miles. I understand many components are affected by time and mileage, but the engine air filter? I just don’t understand how time affects it.
I ordered a pair of Mann C 3698-2 filters. Delivered price for the pair: $29.76. So, I know they’re not that expensive, but I’d still rather save $30 than waste it. If I don’t use ‘em now I’ll probably bust ‘em out around 26,000 miles (half the normal recommendation, just to be safe since they’re cheap).
My car is just out of warranty, so no need to do needless service to maintain warranty.
Would you replace this pair of filters?
On a tangent, I am going to replace the charcoal activated combination filter as I believe the charcoal activation has a shelf-life. Correct me if I'm wrong.

vettdvr

I would only replace them at 10,000 miles IF you drove through very heavy dust. On my last trip across country in NM 50 mph winds blew very heavy dust that I drove through for about 2 minutes. So I will change mine no matter the mileage.

However 10,000 miles of normal driving. No. I would not.

Cousin_Dupree

Thanks for your input. Just normal conditions. High humidity here. Not dusty. I've never even taken it off pavement. I've always thought of air filters purely as a mileage issue--of course related to conditions.

edwinwalke

You know the maintenance recommendations are just that recommendations and should be subject to common sense. I would check the air filter at the prescribed interval (time and mileage) and change if it is needed. If the filter is full of dirt and discolored then probably time to change. At 52K miles it will be dirty unless you are driving in unusual conditions.

Oil it a little different -- I follow the manufacturers recommendation for mileage or time because it is hard to determine what condition the oil is in without doing analysis. I would only pay for oil analysis if I was planning on extending the manufactures recommendations.

Cousin_Dupree

Yes, agreed, if I thought the manufacturer was being too conservative. Or, if I was concerned that the manufacturer's recommendation was too long I could test oil at various intervals leading up to the recommended mileage/date to see if the manufacturer was actually being conservative enough.

B16RacerN2NR

Time affects air filters more than most people think...

The air filters are essentially made out of paper. Take a stack of papers, heat them up to under hood temperatures and let them cool off. Do that to the stack of papers once a month for 4 years and tell me that they won't feel like they are about to fall apart lol.

Sure these filters are of higher quality "paper" but it's still paper none-the-less.

Pay the $30 now for the filters instead of waiting till you hit the mileage mark and risking the filters falling apart into small pieces and damaging parts like your MAF.

GT-ER

Some maintenance intervals are about making you spend some money. I see absolutely no reason to change out an air filter even if it 10 years old with 10K miles unless you live in a very dusty place.

Yuille36

I change out my air filters everytime, I do an annual service. Despite whether you live in a dusty area or not, you find bugs, leaves, sands you name it, it gets sucked up in the filters. Why not change them more frequently, as there cheap.

2slowcdi

+1

novae500

$30 is cheap maintenance. I replaced mine with K&Ns and plan on cleaning/recharging them annually.

grane

djrabbi

just look at the filters during every oil change, for me its once a year so I change them every year...wallet doesn't hurt much since they are like $18 each...