2016 Mazda CX-5 Air filter replacement interval?

[erhayes]

+1 Odrapnew

 

[yrwei52]

This.

I can go into a long spiel about it, but I'll save everyone from falling asleep unless someone is interested.

I’m interested. I believe you can change air filter every week and won’t hurt anything to the engine but your wallet.

And not changing it won’t “damage” the engine but affect the engine efficiency and performance.

 

[Lazy2.5]

What are the costs of a damaged engine?
Do you really want to take that risk?

Just out of curiosity, what sort of risk do you claim could cause engine damage?

 

[txt990]

OP’s '16 CX-5 with 86K miles has no warranty now, and he can change the air filter whenever he prefers.

For air filter, I believe the mileage used should be the only consideration with driving environment. I wouldn’t bother how long the filter is being there, unless it’s been there for 5、8 years.

Realistically, the car is driven about 10k a year, so technically I can probably use the air filter for another six months after the 3 years.

 

[hsdejong]

Just out of curiosity, what sort of risk do you claim could cause engine damage?

Reusing (washing) the filter has the risk that the filter will be damaged and no longer filter properly.
Contaminating the engine results in greater wear and tear and will increase the risk of damage to the engine or at least lead to higher maintenance costs.

 

[ruthrj]

OP’s '16 CX-5 with 86K miles has no warranty now, and he can change the air filter whenever he prefers.

For air filter, I believe the mileage used should be the only consideration with driving environment. I wouldn’t bother how long the filter is being there, unless it’s been there for 5、8 years.

My bad, I forgot the initial state of the OPs vehicle. I’d also do mileage if not in severe conditions.

 

[Odrapnew]

I’m interested. I believe you can change air filter every week and won’t hurt anything to the engine but your wallet.

And not changing it won’t “damage” the engine but affect the engine efficiency and performance.

What we call a 'paper' filter, which is pretty much any factory style air filter, is least efficient at removing dust when it's new. As it gets dirty, that dirt fills in voids/spaces in the filter and while doing so, it will filter more (and smaller) particles. You do get to a point where there's so much dirt on the filter that performance is reduced, but that actually takes quite a bit.

Roughly, in the first ~5% of the filter life, it lets in 1/3 of the total dust over it's useful life. So, if you change the filter out after 5%, it would only take 3 filters to match 1 full life filter. Now repeat that filter change 17 more times to reach that 100% full filter life, you let in almost 7x the amount of dust as 1 full life filter. Those are just rough ballpark numbers, but are based on actual lab results.

One other point is that every time you crack open the air box, you're exposing the clean side of the ducting to environment. Again, the amount is so small probably not noticeable, but still there.

Whether that causes noticeable damage to an engine is really environment dependent. If you drive 100% paved roads in a city, you probably won't see a noticeable degradation. If that's flipped to 100% dirt roads, you might see degradation quicker. With so many components in the engines that rely on engine air/engine oil, better to keep anything and everything you can out of the intake air.

As for efficiency/performance, you could see a performance decrease at the extreme clogged filter, but the problem is that it's so gradual, you probably don't notice it until you put a new filter in. Efficiency (fuel mileage) takes quite a bit to degrade.

Real life case, the first air filter in my motorcycle ran until the bike wouldn't start at all. It actually ran fine on a Friday, but wouldn't start the following Monday. Fuel efficiency did not change at all over the life because it is fuel injected, so the ECU was able to compensate. Power on the other hand, that's where things were different. The power decrease was so gradual, that while the bike still felt fast (06 GSXR750), when I put the new filter in, it was a completely different animal.

My last comment, we had a customer that was changing the filter out in the off-road construction vehicle every 3 days because it was 'dirty.' Well, the engine wore out (rings) much sooner than expected. Looking at the restriction of the filter after 3 days, there was minimal increase in restriction, so the filter was basically new. Just because the filter looks dirty doesn't mean it really is.

 

[madar]

I've gone 40k miles on these filters, mainly because I've forgotten to change them. But if you look at the hardware after the filter you'll see that it stays very clean. The OEM filter is one of the best you can get for these vehicles. If you're in doubt about it, hold it up to the sun, if you can see through it it's still good, if you can't then chuck it.

 

[yrwei52]

What we call a 'paper' filter, which is pretty much any factory style air filter, is least efficient at removing dust when it's new. As it gets dirty, that dirt fills in voids/spaces in the filter and while doing so, it will filter more (and smaller) particles. You do get to a point where there's so much dirt on the filter that performance is reduced, but that actually takes quite a bit.

Roughly, in the first ~5% of the filter life, it lets in 1/3 of the total dust over it's useful life. So, if you change the filter out after 5%, it would only take 3 filters to match 1 full life filter. Now repeat that filter change 17 more times to reach that 100% full filter life, you let in almost 7x the amount of dust as 1 full life filter. Those are just rough ballpark numbers, but are based on actual lab results.

One other point is that every time you crack open the air box, you're exposing the clean side of the ducting to environment. Again, the amount is so small probably not noticeable, but still there.

Whether that causes noticeable damage to an engine is really environment dependent. If you drive 100% paved roads in a city, you probably won't see a noticeable degradation. If that's flipped to 100% dirt roads, you might see degradation quicker. With so many components in the engines that rely on engine air/engine oil, better to keep anything and everything you can out of the intake air.

As for efficiency/performance, you could see a performance decrease at the extreme clogged filter, but the problem is that it's so gradual, you probably don't notice it until you put a new filter in. Efficiency (fuel mileage) takes quite a bit to degrade.

Real life case, the first air filter in my motorcycle ran until the bike wouldn't start at all. It actually ran fine on a Friday, but wouldn't start the following Monday. Fuel efficiency did not change at all over the life because it is fuel injected, so the ECU was able to compensate. Power on the other hand, that's where things were different. The power decrease was so gradual, that while the bike still felt fast (06 GSXR750), when I put the new filter in, it was a completely different animal.

My last comment, we had a customer that was changing the filter out in the off-road construction vehicle every 3 days because it was 'dirty.' Well, the engine wore out (rings) much sooner than expected. Looking at the restriction of the filter after 3 days, there was minimal increase in restriction, so the filter was basically new. Just because the filter looks dirty doesn't mean it really is.

Thanks for the explanation. I guess it’s out of my imagination that a new paper filter actually has worse filtering effect to the air than a dirty one. But I got your point which also persuade me to agree with your point. Learn something everyday!

 

[AL Cx5]

I installed a Wix filter minder. It measures the pressure drop across the filter and filter box.

In Dailey driving mod, it does a grest job. At WOT, my turbo pulls enough air to move the guage.

Now I know the condition of the filter.


https://mazdas247.com/forum/t/2024-cx-5-turbo-air-filter-box-test-yikes.123881544/