Air filter question

[claude626]

Has anyone installed a K&N air filter and noticed any benefits..?

TIA

[Bora Sport]

I've always replaced the paper element filter with K&N panel filters on everyone of my cars right back to my VR6's. I don't do it for any performance benefit as in my opinion this whole changing air filters for extra performance is crap. At best any gain would be minuscule. I do it because I tend to keep my cars for years at a time. Our Vento had 440,000k's on it when my son wrote it off, our Bora has over 300.000k's and is still going strong, my tuned Polo GTI has nearly 180,000k's on it etc. etc. I do it because it is a once only purchase.

[vwrovervolvo]

K&N are very poor filters - in that they let a lot more dust/soot/etc. into your engine compared to the OEM filter.

The OEM filters on the other hand are state of the art and made by some of the best filter manufacturers in the world. MANN+HUMMEL / MAHLE / etc...

This graph shows an ISO standard test of comparable aftermarket filters. You can see that the K&N and UNI brand filters let the most dirt through (into the engine).

http://www.nicoclub.com/articles/images/kn-v-oem-3.jpg

Personally I would never buy a car with a K&N fitted. People who do oil analysis have found that wear metals and silica (dust) have gone through the roof after fitting a K&N.

[Bora Sport]

If what you are claiming is true and who am I to argue other than to say as my personal experience shows above, I have run my cars well past 300,000 kilometres without any engine wear issues. The Vento had as I said 440,000 kilometres when my son wrote it off, otherwise we would've kept it longer. So unless you plan on keeping your car for more kilometres than that I would think you are pretty safe with a K&N filter in your car. Plus in my daily job I do have to drive on some gravel roads. Currently my wife's Jetta has over 240,000k's on it.

[wraith666]

A cotton filter like the K&N filter worse but flow better basically. It's a trade off between outright flow and outright filtration. Hence why the cotton filters require oil to make them more effective at filtering.

[vwrovervolvo]

If what you are claiming is true and who am I to argue other than to say as my personal experience shows above, I have run my cars well past 300,000 kilometres without any engine wear issues. The Vento had as I said 440,000 kilometres when my son wrote it off, otherwise we would've kept it longer. So unless you plan on keeping your car for more kilometres than that I would think you are pretty safe with a K&N filter in your car. Plus in my daily job I do have to drive on some gravel roads. Currently my wife's Jetta has over 240,000k's on it.

There are several independent tests around which show the aftermarket cotton/foam filters let lots more dust into your engine that OE equivalents.
In some cases, that may cause catastrophic failure - e.g. Both Mercedes/McLaren F1 cars in a race in Bahrain (I think 2004). The engines were literally sandblasted from the inside - causing 2 DNFs and the M/M team to throw money at a real filter company (who also make most of the filters for VW).

In most cases though (e.g. yours) you just end up with (slightly?) accelerated engine wear that goes unnoticed unless you do oil analysis.

For anyone who has a K&N and questions me, get an oil analysis kit ($20 per time - normally you need to buy 10 kits in one go) and do a sample after 10k km with a K&N and 10k km with the OE filter. Silica (dust) and wear metals will be higher with the K&N, unless you drive in very clean conditions.

A cotton filter like the K&N filter worse but flow better basically. It's a trade off between outright flow and outright filtration. Hence why the cotton filters require oil to make them more effective at filtering.

There are studies which have shown that the pressure drop (flow restriction) in your air intake is mainly cased by bends and constrictions in the ducting. The pressure drop through the air filter is trivial in most cases. You would be better off changing the ducting rather than changing the filter if you are looking for more power...

[3C4M Guy]

Well vwrovervolvo, you've got me convinced by what you say. All makes sense ... but maybe not to a person who invested their hard-earned $ in a K&N filter. It's always hard after you've put $ into going in a particular direction. I fitted a Whiteline anti-lift kit, but soon realised it was a step in the wrong direction.

[eurobahn5]

Hey, why is the whiteline anti lift kit no good ?

[kamold]

I had a Whiteline alk installed in my octy and am very happy with it. Big different to off the line axel tramp. Minor increase in steering weight.

Sent from my HTC 10 using Tapatalk

[3C4M Guy]

Hey, why is the whiteline anti lift kit no good ?

I'm sure all the claimed benefits are true. I was just disappointed by creaking and groaning noises that were introduced. But then the noise could be coming from the front urethane bushes fitted at the same time.
Apologies for hijacking the topic of this thread!

[Bora Sport]

Once again I am not disputing your test results but I feel if you can safely do over 440,000 kilometres with the car still requiring less than a litre of oil added between 15,000 kilometre oil changes and still be getting over 600 kilometres out of a tank with all this accelerated engine wear then I will take that happily.