The other day my wife noticed that my car wasn’t smelling too fresh. She doesn’t ride in my car that often since we bought a van, so I figured that the smell had been building for some time. I figured I might as well change the cabin air filter - after all, it had been three years since I replaced said cabin air filter.

A week or so ago, my wife’s car broke down. The pully on the A/C compressor pulley wobbled and seized, so not only did her 2004 Honda Civic have no A/C, it smoked under the hood from the belt rubbing against the belt. So I had some work to do, and in the course of the repair I had to disconnect the negative battery cable because of reasons (and if you must know, it’s because I had to move the alternator out of the way, and in doing so I started sparking things. Safety second, I guess).

Replacing the cabin air filter is one of the most neglected yet easy-to-do maintenance items that car owners should do. It’s probably neglected because cars used to not have cabin air filters, and auto repair shops want to charge an arm-and-a-leg to replace them. The cabin air filter itself is fairly cheap.