Mark: Hi, it’s Mark from Top Local, we’re here with Bernie Pawlik, Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver, Vancouver’s best auto service experience, 18 time winners of Best Auto Repair in Vancouver as voted by their customers. How’re you doing Bernie?
Bernie: I am doing very well.
Mark: So we’re going to talk about a Ford Edge, an incredibly important change or maintenance item, the cabin air filter. What was going on with this Ford vehicle?
Bernie: Well the vehicle came to us for a routine maintenance service and the cabin air filter was dirty, due by mileage, the vehicle has about 50,000 kilometres, so we replaced the cabin air filter.
Mark: So what’s the function of a cabin air filter?
Bernie: Well I mean, the name kind of says it all, it filters the air that comes into the cabin, meaning the air where you sit in the car, so I’m just kind of pondering that for a minute and going well why do we have a cabin air filter because if you take a car from 20 years ago, you’d be hard pressed to find any model that had a cabin air filter. So that makes me wonder, you know why we have one, but I would think, I mean, it makes for a nicer experience having filtered air in the cabin especially if you’re spending an hour commuting through LA traffic and there’s a lot of car exhaust fumes in the air. It helps to filter all that stuff like that. It also helps to filter out pollens and dust and dirt so it actually keeps the cabin of your car cleaner overall.
Mark: Well I know you don’t drive a lot on the freeways here in Vancouver, but the traffic here is actually worse than LA so that also applies to Vancouver.
Bernie: Yes it does, you’re right and you know what, almost any major city in probably the world.
Mark: So is there a simple way to inspect the cabin air filter?
Bernie: Well on some cars there is and on some cars there isn’t. Thinking of some European cars, where as soon as you pop the hood you can actually see the cabin air filters sitting right in the back of the hood so that’s a really easy one. Others you normally have to remove things to inspect them. So on this Edge for instance, the glovebox, they make it pretty easy on the Edge, you have to just pop your glovebox down and out of the way and there’s a hatch to get out and a lot of vehicle manufacturers are like that. There’s a few that make it difficult but really the way to deal with the cabin air filter is just replace it in certain intervals, 30 to 50,000 kilometres, say 20 to 30,000 miles every 3-4 years depending on how much you drive and it also depends on where you drive. If you’re driving in dry kind of city areas, they last for quite a while whereas if you’re spending a lot of time in dusty country roads or logging roads, that kind of thing, you’re going to need change it far more often. I have a photo here of this cabin air filter. I don’t know why, we change them a lot and I’m always like of wow this is cool, it’s dirty so it’s just something to look at here. There’s our cabin air filter, this is just for context, this area here is all full of dirt and dust and it should be white like the edges here. So, when it’s new it’s white and clean and when it gets old its dusty and dirty and we’ve seen them ten times worse that this, but anyway, this one’s pretty dirty. Definitely the owner got their money’s worth out of this one.
Mark: Imagine if you’re smoking certain substances it’s probably a good idea to change it even more often.
Bernie: I suppose so, but the filter actually doesn’t, the filter actually filters outside air not inside air, so good thought as probably other filters you could get for that.
Mark: How are Ford Edge for reliability?
Bernie: Pretty good, you know we work on a few of them, no real major problems with them. I mean it’s a fairly new vehicle although I guess they are getting on, this is a 2013 with low mileage and the owner has had no problems with this vehicle at all. Quite nice vehicle and so far fairly reliable.
Mark: So there you go, if you’re looking for service for your Ford vehicle in Vancouver the guys to see are Pawlik Automotive. You can reach them at 604-327-7112 to book your appointment, you must book ahead, they’re busy or check out their website pawlikautomotive.com or our YouTube channel, search for Pawlik Automotive Repair. We have hundreds of videos on there. Thanks Bernie
Bernie: Thanks Mark.
