YosemyTT

I am going to change my stock airbox at some point but I wanted to get a little more out of it before I threw it away. I put a Neuspeed exhaust on recently and felt some nice gains at the top end of the rev range. I know the car could use some help on the inhale as well as the exhale so I put a K&N filter in yesterday. I'm not sure how much of this is my imagination but I have to say the car felt quite a bit smoother and seemed to have a little more power. Some of this may be simply because my stock filter was dirty and the K&N was clean but when I held them up to the light it was easy to see that the K&N allows better airflow.

Here are my concerns: I've been around this forum long enough to worry about oil from the filter causing problems with damage to the element in the MAF sensor. Does anyone have direct experience with this? My other concern is about dirt getting into the engine since the K&N seems to have a more open design than the stock filter. Anyone care to comment?

I may go back to a stock filter but I wanted to get more out of my stock airbox before I threw it out and went with another design (TTDA, I expect).

BrillianTT 2.0

Ran a K&N for the last 20K - no problems...

YosemyTT

I suspect most problems occur when people clean them and use too much oil after the clean. Have you taken a look at it over that 20k period if you haven't cleaned it? How is it looking? Sorry for all the questions :-)

lkfoster

I've run K&N air filters on two cars, a BMW M5 and a Jeep Grand Cherokee, for around ten years now. I went with them originally to avoid high replacement costs for the BMW. I can't say I ever noticed any power differences, but some Jeep guys swear by them.

I don't know about oil fouling of the MAF, as neither of the cars has that kind of fuel metering.

My personal feeling is that you either get airflow or particle retention in a filter, but you can't get both. My biggest concern about K&N lies with particle retention, especially since I live in a really dusty desert and used to take the Jeep out in the four-wheeling a fair amount. While the BMW filter doesn't seem to let any visible dust past, the Jeep always seems to have a fine layer of dust downstream. Having said that, it wasn't using any oil when it got traded in on a 3.2 coupe.

YosemyTT

I'm a little worried about the dust because of all the construction we have in Houston. I'll have to monitor it and see.

|everso!|

if you remember Mark, i installed my K&N a few months ago (with disastrous technique...LOL)

a few possibilities:

1. I screwed up the K&N Installation (probably)
2. the MAF went bad independently (possible)
3. space is a lie
4. my car is made of styrofoam.
5. I installed the K&N correctly and it caused the problem (possible)

either way, i don't mind....my car is leased and i will likely not own it past the lease dates. if my MAF keeps going bad, i'll just have Audi keep replacing it....again, i'm not sure what triggered the MAF to go bad though.

TTschwing

Over-oiling after cleaning. I make it a habit to clean my MAF with some non-residue electronics cleaner at every oil change. I have 2 MAF elements that I've swapped back and forth (one OEM and one Vw "A"). I rarely clean the K&N as my miles are relatively low... I've never had a problem and a K&N has been on there in one for or another for 17K. There are also quite a few TTDA's out there with only a few reporting a MAF failure, and that could not be determined to be the filters fault because of the relatively high faiure rate of these anyway...Probably more coincidental than anything..

YosemyTT

it is hard to know for sure whether or not there was any connection between your MAF sensor going bad and your filter. I am not too stressed about it at this stage because the sensor is covered by an extension to 70 miles. I can try it for a while and replace if needed. I do recall reading your install notes :-)

jhoeppel

I must agree w/ <b>lkfoster's</b> comments.

I've used a K&amp;N drop-in for 30k in my New Beetle with no MAF problems; Beetle's have similar problems with failing MAF sensors and some have implicated K&amp;N filters. When you clean and re-oil the filter, it's hard to know how much oil is enough and how much too much.

I too have been concerned about dust making it through the seemingly transparent filter media, but they use them alot on construction vehicles--I can't imaging a dustier environment, and those things can't be cheap to fix. OTOH, clearances in those large diesels may be looser that in our 1.8t's. Or maybe not, given the high compression ratios in diesels.

I'll stick with OEM until at least the warranty's out...

YosemyTT

I suspect over enthusiastic use of the oil is behind some of the failures. What do you use to clean the element? Some kind of spray that will evaporate? I may clean mine when I get my next oil change at 60k (I'm now at 55k and just changed the oil).

PS You need to drive your car more!