Cabin Microfilter Maintenance

2015 Leaf

- I tried to replace with the Fram CF11177 - carbon, baking-soda model - it is way to stiff and once flexed and tightened up on the ends it does not resume shape to the proper square and allow the cover back on - PERIOD. I highly recommend no-one purchase this filter and wasted $17 from Amazon and your valuable time. The flexible light paper filters are the only thing that is going to go in the little square and resume its proper full size on the other side. A little miffed others says this works from the past.

Living in Chicago with some really crappy air quality thought this was the way to go - now I see why the great engineering staff at Nissan passed n the idea. If they were Honda engineers they could have gotten it done. Nissan engineering is a far cry from Honda engineering!!

Back to the Internet for another purchase!! - Frustrated!!

rexki said:

2015 Leaf

- I tried to replace with the Fram CF11177 - carbon, baking-soda model - it is way to stiff and once flexed and tightened up on the ends it does not resume shape to the proper square and allow the cover back on - PERIOD. I highly recommend no-one purchase this filter and wasted $17 from Amazon and your valuable time. The flexible light paper filters are the only thing that is going to go in the little square and resume its proper full size on the other side. A little miffed others says this works from the past.

Living in Chicago with some really crappy air quality thought this was the way to go - now I see why the great engineering staff at Nissan passed n the idea. If they were Honda engineers they could have gotten it done. Nissan engineering is a far cry from Honda engineering!!

Back to the Internet for another purchase!! - Frustrated!!

Click to expand...

OEM part# 27891-3sGOA, cost USD $7.13 from the Nissan parts counter
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=18648

Was that the Fram "Fresh Breeze" or something like that? I don't know for 100% certain that they actually installed mine, as opposed to keeping it and using a Nissan filter, but it is likely - the new filter had no smell, and actually absorbed odor for months. The tech had part of the dash apart to do it... It may be that this is a case of needing to use one part if a tech will be installing it, and another for DIY.

Yes - its the Fresh Breeze one

I'm sorry to read that. I don't know what the difference in installation procedure would be.

If the filter does not spring back to original size then it will be leaving sizable gaps of unfiltered surface area on the AC and heater coils and thus defeat its intentional purpose.

The paper finger tab on the Fram is also extremely fragile and tore on mine as the factory is rock solid - put it in and out at least 4 times so far.

Upon examination of the Fram - it gets damaged and torn in three places within all of an inch on the upper left corner outside fin of paper.

The Fram is much more pure paper feel (like Bounty paper towels) to it and the factory is more of a plastic feel

What I meant was, I don't know what the longer procedure is to remove the whole filter cover.

Question: "Procedure to Remove longer filter cover" ??

I am not sure what you are asking either - there is only 1 filter cover that I am aware of and its considerably smaller than the 5 7/8 inch height dimension of the filter.

Remove glove box and horizontal shield below versus only remove little access panel in glove box question?

I see the removal of the glove box and shield as the only viable method to get it right otherwise you should be in Med school working only with robotics.

The only other alternative would be to remove the whole air box handling assembly which I am guessing that would take about the same time to remove an internal combustion engine. Then you would have to take it apart at its seams put in air filter and then reinstall air handler and then have major bucks to restore the coolant to the system rather than get caught $10,000 for ozone leakage. There was a YouTube on this I saw and it made me wonder Why someone would do that? The computers, cables, refrigerant, and the deadly air bag units - way over the top for me and I have rebuilt engines and transmissions?

I am not sure what you are asking either - there is only 1 filter cover that I am aware of and its considerably smaller than the 5 7/8 inch height dimension of the filter.

Remove glove box and horizontal shield below versus only remove little access panel in glove box question?

Click to expand...

I assume then that removing the glovebox and shield below it is how you'd have to proceed to install a "Fresh Breeze" cabin filter. I really liked that filter compared to the OEM unit, but unless you are sensitive to odors, it doesn't seem worth the extra trouble. In my case I paid a dealership to replace the filter (and they didn't even do it the first time - just charged me for it, leaving the new one in the car!). If a reputable dealer will install a Fresh Breeze filter for the same labor cost as OEM, I still recommend the Fram.

rexki said:

Yes - its the Fresh Breeze one

Click to expand...

That is what I used when I replaced mine last summer. I've got another one sitting here to install. I had to remove the glove box so I could get to the filter, but it went in without any issues.

rexki said:

2015 Leaf

- I tried to replace with the Fram CF11177 - carbon, baking-soda model - it is way to stiff and once flexed and tightened up on the ends it does not resume shape to the proper square and allow the cover back on - PERIOD. I highly recommend no-one purchase this filter and wasted $17 from Amazon and your valuable time. The flexible light paper filters are the only thing that is going to go in the little square and resume its proper full size on the other side. A little miffed others says this works from the past.

Living in Chicago with some really crappy air quality thought this was the way to go - now I see why the great engineering staff at Nissan passed n the idea. If they were Honda engineers they could have gotten it done. Nissan engineering is a far cry from Honda engineering!!

Back to the Internet for another purchase!! - Frustrated!!

Click to expand...

I laughed out loud when I read this. On my long-since traded 2001 Honda Odyssey, the brilliant Honda engineers outdid themselves.

To remove the OEM cabin filter the first time, a stamped steel horizontal support bracket had to be CUT out, as it was in front of the cabin filter access. I am not making this up.

I think the team that designed the Leaf cabin filter access must have studied with the Honda team. I, too, am concerned about the Fram filter I installed, wondering if it spread out properly inside the filter housing. There's really no way to tell!

As you can see from my car ownership listing I have the Honda Ody 2001 and yes you are correct the metal bar gets cut off.
Engineering improved from 2001 to 2006. My 2006 Civic works like a charm on many serviceable items.

Watching a few YouTube videos and referring to two of them during the process helped.

Re: the Fram CF11177, I hadn't dug up this thread but did skim the Amazon reviews on the possible issues it w/it not expanding.

I finally changed mine tonight and it seemed like there was no way I was going to be able to do it thru the lame access port in the glove box, so I had to remove the whole glove box assembly.

I have to say, this is a pretty crappy design w/having to stuff that filter in that small hole. The pull strip previous filter (possibly OEM, definitely not Fram and not dark like the Fram) tore right off, so I had to fight to get the filter out. In looking at where the dirt was, it wasn't clear that the old filter had fully expanded correctly. I'm past 40K miles and I bought the car used w/under 24K miles. No idea if it was changed at ~23 or 24K miles or way before or never, as I never had it done.

The Fram filter was a bit tough to get in, despite compressing it before stuffing it in the hole. It's unclear if it fully expanded, despite my tapping on it and fiddling with it. I think other regular paper filters could have the same issue.

From the printed instructions that came w/the Fram filter, it seems like the Nissan Cube has a similar design, same type of cover to a small hole.

My cover was also black/dark and not white like previous Leafs.

Not impressed w/Nissan's design of this. If they only made the hole the full height of the filter and made it possible to do w/o removing 8+ (10?) screws and the glove box assembly.

I just did exactly the same. Taking the glove box off was easier than contorting my arm. Fram went in ok. But poorly designed. The Soul EV's filter is easy, right in the glove box.

I have yet do this on my car, but if there is anything in the way, I will get out my dremmel wheel and cut out any offending parts... I have had it with the anti-customer maintenance engineering of the car makers, I had this with my 2001 odyssey also...

FWIW, I reconfirmed my memory that my 02 Nissan Maxima didn't have this goofy cram a filter into a small hole design from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WgA8IYcaxU. From ~2:15, you can see there's a full-sized hole so that 2 filters can fit in w/o squeezing nonsense. (Back when I did it, YouTube, the site didn't exist yet.)

The glove box did need removal and there was wiring to muck with though.

I just did mine and while it was not that dusty there were mold spores on it. I used the $7 filter from Oreilly and it popped in just fine being made of some kind of accordion pleated Dacron or Polyester material.

Still better then dealing with the old GM Tornado where to service the heater fan you had to jack up the car to remove the right front tire, draw an outline with your soapstone measured from certain features in the fender well and cut an access hole trough the fender liner and underlying fire wall to do the service. After you cleaned the dust off the fan so it would stop vibrating it was left up to you if after all that effort you wanted to ensure the motor was lubed properly and had good brushes in it. You then still were left with finding a way to close up the gaping hole in the fender well and heater box. It would have much been nicer to have a moderately inconvenient to replace filter catch all that dirt instead.

Most of this stuff was designed to be assembled as a component by a third party vendor with little though of what is was going to be like servicing it once installed in the car and it shows.

Lubing the blower motor on a Volvo 240 wasn't quite that bad, but it wasn't easy. Since they apparently started at the factory with a blower hanging on a string and then built the rest of the car around it, the best way to get at the motor was to cut holes in the housing, after taking the lower dash apart.

powersurge said:

I have yet do this on my car, but if there is anything in the way, I will get out my dremmel wheel and cut out any offending parts... I have had it with the anti-customer maintenance engineering of the car makers, I had this with my 2001 odyssey also...

Click to expand...

Lol, that's the spirit!

I took this approach with our washing machine. The "coin catcher" became clogged and there was no access panel. You are supposed to disassemble the entire machine; which is a bear for a front-loader. The first time this happened I spent an entire day and I swore if it ever happened again I was going to cut a hole in the *****. Well it did happen again and without a moments hesitation I cut a hole in the *****. 10 minutes later the clog was removed. Took a few minutes more to fashion an access panel out of an old metal sign. Third time, the job was done in a matter of minutes. We have a big dog, so the "coin catcher" tends to be a dog-hair catcher.

Nubo said:

powersurge said:

I have yet do this on my car, but if there is anything in the way, I will get out my dremmel wheel and cut out any offending parts... I have had it with the anti-customer maintenance engineering of the car makers, I had this with my 2001 odyssey also...

Click to expand...

Lol, that's the spirit!

I took this approach with our washing machine. The "coin catcher" became clogged and there was no access panel. You are supposed to disassemble the entire machine; which is a bear for a front-loader. The first time this happened I spent an entire day and I swore if it ever happened again I was going to cut a hole in the *****. Well it did happen again and without a moments hesitation I cut a hole in the *****. 10 minutes later the clog was removed. Took a few minutes more to fashion an access panel out of an old metal sign. Third time, the job was done in a matter of minutes. We have a big dog, so the "coin catcher" tends to be a dog-hair catcher.

Click to expand...

We have a older front loader we'd like to replace with a newer model. The problem is ours has the easily removable front panel(2 screws) and you have easy access to everything under the door. Problem is ALL the new front loaders I've seen(and I've been looking) no longer have the access door, I can only imagine how one would access the "coin catcher"(which I've had to do several times) or access other things like the shocks which I've replaced both over the years. Having to disconnect the hoses and drain and slide the washer out from under our cabinet to do these basic things is UNACCEPTABLE! Because of this I guess I'll have to keep our 15+ year old washer and keep working on it, at least I can