A fairly standard thing to do when buying a used vehicle for daily use in my stable is to make sure all of the consumables are happy. When I inspected the air and cabin filters on my X-trail, this was certainly not the case at all.
The AEM air filter is a standard unit replacement but is washable and comes with a life of car guarantee. When you consider this unit was $10 more than a replacement paper filter, why wouldn’t you?
The AEM filter is a 28-20409 and is available in both Australia and the USA very easily for around the $50aud mark.
Installation is super easy, with the air filter sitting in the airbox vertically, it literally just drops into place after pressing the tabs in on the lid of the box.
The repco filter that was in the car was absolutely hammered as you can see:
The cabin filter was the best offering from Ryco and was sourced from the same supplier on promo for $30aud.
As pictured, It’s a Ryco RCA188MS – available at any reputable Auto parts supplier.
Install is very very easy. The filter is situated behind the glove box compartment and as a result, this must be removed.
It is a matter of removing the phillips head screws that hold the glove box in and then using a trim tool on the trim that is part of the housing on the left to pop out the two locators. From here the whole enchilada will pull straight out towards the rear of the vehicle.
The filter itself sits inline with the fan controls and has a little lids that requires un-clipping.
As you can see, the cabin filter was also knackered and hadn’t been replaced since new.
Ryco are even good enough to provide instructions with pictures to go wit the cabin filter.
This is a super super simple task that could be undertaken by anyone. I recommend both products here but the AEM for the price is awesome. By far, the best thing is that now I can take my car to a meet and pop the bonnet and be serious about the ol’ QR25 – It’s got a broformance air filter and a sticker to tell you it does!
In all seriousness though, I chose this filter to suit the fact that I will take this car on unsealed roads etc and, having the luxury of washing a filter after a long dirty drive is far cheaper than constantly purchasing paper replacements!
