Mark: Hi, it's Mark from Top Local. We're here with Bernie Pawlik, Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver, 21 time winners of best auto repair in Vancouver. It's unbelievable. 21 times. Come on. Aren't there any other good places to get your car fixed? Well, maybe not. These are the guys that their customers vote for as being the best auto repair in Vancouver. How are you doing this morning, Bernie?
Bernie: Doing very well, and there are lots of other great shops around. We're just fortunate to have customers who vote for us, which is... Thank you.
Mark: So there you go. The guys at Pawlik do a great job. Today, we're talking about a 2015 Honda CRV that had a cabin air filter that needed changing. What was going on with this Honda?
Bernie: So the vehicle came to us for an A maintenance service, which is the most basic service that's required on the vehicle. It's essentially an oil change with a basic vehicle inspection. So what we do during that service is look at the lights, adjust the tire pressures, inspect the fluids. We use a two post hoist, so we get the vehicle up in the air, we can wiggle the wheels, make sure there's nothing obviously wrong with them, anything obviously loose. This vehicle's pretty low kilometre, so wouldn't expect to find anything, but you never know. Yeah and that basically covers it. The B service is more involved, which we take wheels off and look at things in more depth. The A service is pretty thorough for what we do. We also found the cabin air filter was dirty and that needed to be replaced. That was really the only other thing that was due at this point in time.
Mark: So what does that look like?
Bernie: Cabin air filter, well let's have a look, because this one, this one was a nice dirty one so it's worth a couple of pictures.
So there's our 2015 CRV, we just washed it. It's a fall... You can tell it's a fall day in Vancouver because there's leaves that have fallen on the ground and it's been moist out. There's the cabin air filter, typical, very dirty cabin air filter. Just so... I don't have a picture of a brand new one, but this white is basically how the whole filter should look. There should be none of this grey, dirty stuff. So this vehicle's four years old, about 50,000 kilometres, a bit less than that. This filter's definitely not been changed. So that's kind of what 50,000 kilometres of driving around the city of Vancouver and maybe Province of British Columbia will do. These filters will get dirtier or less dirty depending on where you drive. So if you happen to be driving in an area with a dusty climate, this filter will plug up certainly a lot quicker.
Mark: Is replacing the cabin air filter complicated?
Bernie: No, it's a really, really pretty straightforward service. And as much as we like to do everything on people's cars, I mean if you're somewhat handy in doing it yourself, it's not a hard thing to do on this vehicle. It's just accessible from the inside and it's not a difficult service to do.
Mark: So the filter that's dirty, what kind of damage does it cause?
Bernie: Well, nothing really. And as bad as this filter is, we've actually seen a few that are even worse than this. But I mean what can happen is it can put some strain on the heater blower system because you're sucking against a blockage. But I can't think of in my whole automotive career where we've ever had one where you can sort of... The motor is straining and you can tell afterwards that it's working better. But clearly there will be some difference in terms of how the air flows to the vehicle. But I've never seen any damage caused by one, but we have seen some tend to come apart and they could get in and tend to block parts of the heater blower of the squirrel cage fan. So again, it's important to change it on a regular basis and regular... This car is four years old. So this has gotten the most life out of it. It's probably gone a little too long, but probably every three years on average is a good time to do a cabin air filter in a car.
Mark: And of course there's whatever it's causing damage as far as your lungs are going.
Bernie: Yeah, exactly. And I was thinking a little bit, while kind of putting this podcast together, what... For so many years, cars never had cabin air filters. This is something that's sort of been around for maybe the last 15 years. And many cars never had them in the past. So what's changed? I think car cabins have become more sealed than they used to be. If you think of cars back in the 60s, it wasn't entirely abnormal to have wind whistling, air leaks, and only something like a Cadillac would probably be really air tight. Even then it wouldn't be. So, there's a lot... You're kind of breathing a lot of air that's in a more confined space so you want to kind of keep it clean. Plus the world's getting probably more polluted and people spend more time sitting in their cars in traffic jams with diesel trucks and those are cleaner than they used to be, but city diesel trucks, all those kinds of things I think contributed to the idea of "Hey, let's make the long driving experience a little more pleasant."
Mark: So not all cars today even have cabin air filters?
Bernie: Nope, not all of them. Most cars I'd say do. But a lot of times, that's the kind of a regular maintenance item we look for on vehicles. And if it's a new client or someone who we haven't done the cabin air filter for, sometimes it's kind of a surprise when you find, "Oh, this car doesn't have one." So yeah, not every car has one. I'd say that probably 80% do. Might even be... That number might even be higher now. But yeah, not every car has one.
Mark: And how reliable are the 2015 Honda CRVs?
Bernie: Well, I was going to immediately go, "Oh yeah, these are super reliable, like all Honda's," but these are still a little bit new to us at our shop. It seems like cars that are a little older, we tend to service a little more frequently and haven't seen a lot of problems with CRVs. But these... So I did a little research and there's actually a number of complaints in these vehicles. Engine vibration problems. Not certain exactly what the cause of that is. But that seems to be about the biggest complaint in this vehicle, engine vibration problems. Interestingly enough, looking at the newer CRVs of 2017 and '18 that these are different engine, there's a lot of problems and this is pretty serious fuel contamination in the engine oil. So the oil level starts going up because there's gasoline somehow leaking into the engine lubricating system and that can cause some serious damage breaking down the engine oil and causing engine damage. So that's a pretty serious issue.
So I think with the CRV, it's good to be a little cautious and expect you might have a few more problems than you would from the past models. Again this is a car, maybe if you're buying a used one, you might even consider getting an extended warranty. I often say with Japanese cars, I don't worry about it because they're so reliable. But this one, this one may have a few issues.
Mark: So there you go. A bit of word of caution on the newer models of Honda CRV. If you're looking for service in Vancouver for your Honda, your guys to call are Pawlik Automotive. You can reach them at (604) 327-7112 to book your appointment. Check out the website, pawlikautomotive.com, YouTube channel, Pawlik Auto Repair. There's hundreds of videos in both places and blog posts on repairs. Huge range of repairs, huge range of makes and models. And of course, thanks so much for listening to the podcast. We really appreciate it. Thanks, Bernie.
Bernie: Thanks, Mark. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. It's appreciated.
