If you have ever even dabbled in performance upgrades for your vehicle, I'm sure you have come across advise stating that the air intake is probably the best bang for the buck upgrade you can do for your car. Before even thinking of upgrading your air filter, perhaps its best to look at the function of an air filter.

 

A car air filter does basically what it is called, it filters air going into the engine. This is very critical because the performance and longevity of your engine can be affected negatively by using a dirty or inferior quality air filter. This is because if the air filter does a poor job of filtering out impurities, these will get into the engine and pollute the engine internals. Over time, the will get into joints and surfaces and cause the engine to be inefficient. So, are the factory paper filters good enough? I would say they are. But there are drawbacks to stock filters, and I will explain further in the breakdown below.

 

Note:- In this  particular article, we are focusing on factory replacement filters and not upgrade kits.

 

Stock Paper Air Filter

 

K&N Replacement Drop In Air Filter

 

Stock "Paper" Air Filter vs K&N Replacement Air Filter

 

Performance

Yes, this one of the major factors for many out there. Will changing to a K&N aftermarket drop-in filter improve performance. I would say yes, and in my expreience, many out there doubt this. Based on my observation, the reason why many don't see any performance improvement is basically this. They are not pushing their vehicles to the point where they will experience the full effect of the K&N air filter.

Imagine this, while you are sitting at the desk in your office, you need less air therefore you breath quite easily and lightly. However, if you are walking up stairs or jogging, you would be breathing heavier. Same goes for cars, only when you push it, will the car start to starve of air, and that is when the ability of your air filter to allow more air into the intake really matters. How K&N improves performance, is down to air flow. See the short fun demo video from K&N.

 

 

Economical

K&N Air Filters are washable, reusable and will last a million miles (1.6 million km). The original stock air filter out of the factory is not washable and needs to be disposed of at each change. So, just do a sum of the total number of air filters you would have to buy for your car for the duration you plan to have it, and compare it against the cost of a K&N Air Filter.

 
Better for the environment

This, by far would be the reason I would recommend changing to K&N air filters. You will genereate less waste and therefore will be contibuting less to the landfields. This alone gets a two thumbs up from the 12volts crew.

 
Reference

K&N Filter Facts