Air filter service intervals

[Doodle]

How many miles do you guys feel comfortable going before changing the air filter. I'm using the stocker AC 3087c element. I tend to change every 10-15k or so. Probably to soon but I live on a farm in western KS and it's very dry/dusty most of the time. I figure it's a cheap investment and with 100K on her now it burns almost no oil between oil changes. Just curious what others are doing.

[Duramax-LMM]

Air filter 50,000 or 4 years, whichever comes first.

Fuel filter - 2 years or per the DIC, whichever comes first.

Oil and filter change, lube (11) zerks - 1 year or per the DIC, whichever comes first.
Also lube all hinges; door, hood, tailgate, fuel door, folding seat hinges plus shift linkage, park brake cables and lock cylinders.

Allison drain/fill spin-on filter, transfer case - 50,000.

Power steering fluid - 50,000

Gear lube - after break-in and 100,000

Every 3 months - treat leather seats and rubber door seals.

Every 6 months - wax with Tech was 2.0

And my 6 year old Toyo HT's (date stamped Sept 2006) are getting slippery in the wet. Replacing them with Michelin M/S 2's even though the tread on the Toyo's is still good.

[D_R_C]

If you live in a dusty environment like I do you might want to consider no more than 20-25k on the stock airfilter.
On the Allison spin on it is recommended per Allison to change @ 10k.
The same for the fuel filter even though @ 10k it's showing about 50%.
I change my oil and lube @ 4-5k or every 6 months which ever comes first.
I have 2 aFe proguard 7 airfilters I swap out with a clean and oiled one every 4-5k and its dirty.
I pretty much figure the amount of dirt would be the same in a stock airfilter vs my aFe which is not pretty.
IMO I would never go by the filter minder I've never had one worth while yet.

[sammydeere]

Nothing wrong with the filter minder if grommit is good and everything is sealed up good. I went 100,000 miles on the original blue filter before I got nervous and changed it. UOA's showed very low silicon levels (3 or 4 ppm) with 10-12,000 mile OCI's. Changed to the newer white model and had the filter minder start going down at 50,000 miles. Those blue nanofiber filters were the best.....sure wish they still made them. Interesting to note that when I first changed air filters at 100,000 miles silicon levels actually went up to 6 ppm and slowly receded back down to 3 or 4 ppm for the same OCI's. I believe changing things too often can actually cause more harm than good. It's a delicate balancing act. When filters start to gather harmful materials the pore size is reduced and their filtering ability actually increases. It is only when it becomes detrimentally restrictive that it is necessary to change. If you take fuel filters for instance, the media turns black fromt he bottom up. As soon as nearly all of the media is black people think it is used up. By installing a set of fuel line restrictive guages before and after the filter you can directly monitor fuel restriction from the filter. When the differential is 1-1.5 psi i usually change it. The filter is always black throughout. Just food for thought.

[Duramax-LMM]

Yep the blue was the best - so throwing one out way too soon is really a waste. I bought a new old stock blue air filter off eBay and have it waiting for next change.

[Tom S.]

The dirtier your air filter gets, the better it filters. Sounds weird, but it's true. The gage that is on your intake measures the amount of air that is getting through. As long as the engine is getting enough air, you're good. Changing the filter before the gage says you need to is not needed.

[D_R_C]

50-100k might work for some depending on the enviroment where you live in, dusty or fairly clean.
Doodle lives on a dusty farm so the 50-100 dream is out of the picture.
He can push it that far if he wants, but I would not suggest it.
I guess he would find that out if he did.
Several months ago a few guys pushed it to the 50K mark and found out that was not a good idea, maybe one of them will chime in.

[SixPak]

Originally Posted by Tom S.

The dirtier your air filter gets, the better it filters.

And, the dirtier it gets, the less air it will pass. Are you going to wait until the engine starves for air before changing it?

I change my air filter every 12 months, regardless of mileage. Its cheap insurance.

[Tom S.]

Originally Posted by SixPak

And, the dirtier it gets, the less air it will pass. Are you going to wait until the engine starves for air before changing it?

I change my air filter every 12 months, regardless of mileage. Its cheap insurance.

That's why there is a gage in the intake to tell you how much air is passing. So no, I'm not going to wait till the engine is starving for air, I'm going to wait until the gage tells me it's time to change the filter. I do the same thing for the oil filter and fuel filter - wait until the factory installed system tells me it's time to change.

Unlike you, I'm on a fixed income and don't have money to throw away. It's not cheap insurance, it's wasting money.

[D_R_C]

Monitoring the MAF g/s is a much better way to monitor the air flow over the filterminder.
A new stock airfilter runs about 25-28 @ idle when the #'s starts dropping to about 22 @ idle the flow is starting to restrict to much, which will start affecting the performance.
The filter minder will not have moved.
Yes with more dirt the filter will filter better, but that also will affect the performance little by little, some probably won't even notice.
With a clean aFe filter the MAF g/s @ idle is 40-42 when it drops to 32-34 @ idle it's time for me to change it. The needle on my filterminder has never moved, hence it's worthless.
More airflow = always having better performance & cooler EGT's.