air filter upgrade.

So the other day I was driving and thought, Whew, the air coming out of my vents really stinks! Of course, I Googled it and found out that cars come with an in cabin air filter that should be changed every 15,000 miles (or 1 year). Well I've had my car for almost two years and have driven about 15,000 miles so I ordered a replacement filter for $20 online. I read that dealerships will replace the filter for you, but they will charge upwards of $100. Today the filter arrived in the mail. I watched a YouTube video and got to work.

Step 1: Remove eight screws holding your glove box in place. Remove the glove box. This was really easy.

Step 2: Locate the filter. It's in there basically in the middle of the photo, along the back wall. It's tall and skinny and black. In the video, they just reached back and pulled it out. Well, I tried. I couldn't get it to budge. I pulled up, down, out. I tried plying it out with a screwdriver. Nothing. So I got Nate on it.

Nate didn't have much luck either, so I tried again. I got on my back and scrunched myself up on the floorboard and wedged a flathead halfway up the filter and twisted. It popped right off. I pulled out the old filter ... and it was BLACK!

Gross! No wonder the air smelled so bad. I bet that filter hasn't been changed ever in that car, which is a 2008 and has about 75,000 miles on it now. The new filter (white!) snapped right in and we are good to go.

Nate said he was having a hard time being proud of me because he thought it was a job he should have done, but I was feeling pretty proud of myself. :) Plus I saved us $80.

Nate is heading out to play laser tag with his coworkers as a company treat. He got a promotion today so we went out to dinner to celebrate! He's now a team lead which is one step under store manager. I also finished wearing my heart monitor today! Today was Day 30. I'll see my cardiologist again next week to see what the results were and find out our next plan of action.