Replace air filter every 90 days
Plagued with the vinegar smell hvac issue. Went in to have filter replaced today and told the SC it had been replaced 8 months ago. Dude tried to tell me “you gotta change it every 90 days” lmaoooo. No auto manufacturer has ever claimed an air filter needs to be changed more than once a year and I showed him Tesla’s website it says every 2 years. He said “nah that’s wrong”. Made for a good laugh.
i’d double clean it with evaporator cleaner (kool it). need to kill the bacteria. new filters not the issue. it’s growth on the coils.
The SC claims they’ve done this every time, but the smell always comes back :( $400 in air filter cost in just over a year. It’s madness I tell you!
SC “cleaned” mine too. Lasted only a few weeks.
When I did it myself I sprayed a ton of it and it has been good for months so far.
I bought my 3 in Dec 2019. Haven't replaced filters yet. Although I only have 6,395 miles on it ;)
Poor lonely little car, she just wants to go out more and play with her friends.
Personally, I feel the more miles I drive, the more value I am getting from it. At least that's what I tell myself after 27k miles in year one.
I’m at 28k miles in 9 months of ownership! I agree! The more I drive, the more value I get out of it!
She has another Tesla to play with at home. Just a coincidence that I bought the thing to make my horrible work commute better (was driving a 2001 Jeep). But covid permanently fixed my need to commute for work a mere 4 months later. I didn’t need to sell as I paid cash. Don’t want to get rid of it because it ridiculously fun to drive (Performance version). And occasionally we need two vehicles. Pretty boring, normalish story
Me too, purchased in June on last year, already approaching 16k miles.
i agree. i’m at 7k at 6 months now.
6k miles in 3+ years is incredible
I bought it for the long drive to work. And 4 months later stopped driving to work. Then we got a Y and it ended up being the errandsmobile
What the. Might as well Uber at that little mileage…
Might as well walk. What kind of psychopath drives 2k miles a year
I’ve found that walking doesn’t work nearly as well. Much more convenient to have a trunk to put bodies things in.
Do you keep a spare?
I am probably a psychopath, but not because of this!
Why would you even buy a 60k+$ car for that little driving?
I was driving a lot. Long ass work commute. Then 4 months later I stopped driving to work. Apparently forever. Love the car, paid cash, just don’t use it much
Thank you, that makes sense. For a sec there I was like why even bother, at that mileage I'd just rent.
I change mine out once a year along with an EVAP coil cleaning with Kool-It cleaner.
I’ve owned countless cars and my Model 3 is the only car I’ve ever had to replace a cabin filter on. That every 90 days suggestion is hilarious 😂
That’s gross. Almost all (maybe all?) cars have them. Not replacing them is literally putting the air you breathe across all the contaminants you’ve ever driven through.
Yes but none of my other cars smelled like a dead hookers ass like the Tesla did
Assuming this is also your first BEV?
I'm told it's a BEV issue because they don't have the residual heat from the engine after you stop driving. In BEV, the air will quickly condensate giving that muggy smell.
No it’s a design issue that Tesla has yet to address/fix. It’s been discussed countless times on this sub. They did change some thing on the software side of things that is definitely better in my case now than it was a couple years ago.
Oh I know the smell very well. I replace my filter and clean the coils at 8 months because of it.
Just saying I've seen similar claims in bolt forums as well. It may be an issue plaguing BEVs, and the mache and ioniq5 haven't been around long enough to get a lot of posts. 🤷♂️
That’s the part where it’s poorly engineered. Still gross that you never changed the filter.
It’s a crappy hvac design, you should change them every 6 months. The design is further bad if you’re in an area with rain. Rotting leafs can also accumulate jn there.
My service center will often just do it in the parking lot in 5 minutes. I usually do it myself but have some broken bones right now and that’s a tough squeeze. I know people like to order parts from Amazon but I just get them from tesla.
Unlike other vehicles you should change them regardless of how many miles you drive in that time period because the cabin air system tends to run itself while the vehicle is parked (no idea why, but it seems pretty common).
The manual says every 2 years or as needed.
Vinegar is a peculiar smell to come from HVAC as the problem is generally one of mildew and smells of damp socks. When you remove the filters, do the filters smell?
If it is the HVAC system, hit the evap coils with the evap coil cleaner spray and circulate air with no AC for ten minutes or so with the windows down before putting new filters in. That should do it.
If the filters don’t stink, I’m not sure it’s the HVAC.
You definitely shouldn’t need to change them every 90 days.
I always changed mine every time I got an oil change. I enjoy my air clean as possible while driving around a densely populated city all the time, so yeah i wouldn’t mind a new one every few months. But it’s not as easy as it was in my other cars so I do 6 months now.
I just did mine (along with coil cleaning) in September and the smell is back
I change it yearly. 90 days is way too frequent.
I would guess the SC guy is speaking from experience. Maybe the humidity is high where you are IDK but he does this every day so there is that
I have a little over 18k miles (2018 M3) and I’ve had to change it twice. It seems to get extra stinky during the summer.
My model 3 received on April 2022 is at 14.6k miles. With the help of YouTube DIY, I just spent 40 minutes changing out the original HEPA filters. Sprayed the filter cabinet space with Lysol. I also opened the frunk cover and sprayed the filter cabinet. Disgusting af. I found a dead bee in my original HEPA filters. I would suggest changing out the filters often, every 4-6 months or if you have bad smell. You never know what are in the particles you’re breathing in.