good to know: car air filter sets exist

Recently, I had an oil change done for my car. Of course, the shop I went to tried to get me to waste money on air filters. Yes, plural. One for the air box in the engine bay and the other for the cabin. The shop said they were dirty. I didn't believe them.

A few days later, I inspected the filters myself. Turns out the shop was right and they were dirty. Since filters are easy to change, I did it myself...

...but I absolutely do not like buying these things. It's almost too easy to spend $40 or more per filter. I wasn't about to do that.

This is when I started searching around and found out about air filter replacement sets, as in air + cabin filter sets. This search will take you to them. Obviously, you'll have to find which fits for your car, but I was so happy to find these sets exist. Why? The price can go as low as 15 bucks for the set, depending on car.

When I said it's $40 per filter at a shop, I'm not kidding. It's almost too easy for the shop to tack on 80 bucks to your oil change if they sucker you into buying air filters. Sometimes they'll even try to sucker you into overpaying for filters and wiper blades all in one go. Add another $50 to $75 for those - and that's not an exaggeration.

I also found out something else. Getting the filter set is in many instances cheaper than buying them separately. I was originally going to separate the purchases, but the set turned out to be the better deal for my car. It wasn't an insanely lower price, but hey, I'll take whatever savings I can get for this stuff.

The price I paid for my filter set was lower than $15, even with tax included.

What would the price have been at the shop? You guessed it, 80 bucks. I saved a whopping $65 just from getting the filter set and installing them myself.

Published 2024 Aug 27