|
Moregolf--As the previous posts have noted, changing out or installing a cabin air filter is a no-brainer. If you pop the hood and look at the wide flat black piece of plastic where the wiper arms come up, you only have to remove two torx screws on the passenger side in order to raise the lip of the plastic up enough to see back under it. You have to take a pair of pliers though and squeeze the tine ends of the clamp together that holds the drain pipe on to the underside of the plastic skirt. Pull the hose off and blow through it or whatever to make sure it is clean. It's the one (and its partner on the other side) that get clogged with maple seeds, leaves and whatever. Make sure both are open. Once that is loose you can pry that side of the skirt up and look back under it. You will see either a black pastic shroud with a rounded elliptical opening or, you will see a black plastic shroud that is square on top with a filter in it. If all you see is just a rounded opening, phone Volvo parts wherever and order the plastic mount and a filter for it. There are two filters--one is white paper, the other is an activated carbon filter. The carbon filter is the best, cost a bit more, but removes a lot of noxious highway odors, like the guy ahead of you with a burned out catalytic converter that makes you wonder if someone in the back seat cut the cheese.
There's a good reason for installing a cabin filter if your car doesn't have one: The cabin air coming in through that outside opening passes in part over the evaporator, a critical part of your airconditioning system. The evaporator in the summer is always wet from condensation, and air coming in that has dust and pollen and whatever, sticks to the wet sides of the evaporator, forms mud and then rust, and helps eat a hole in your evaporator, which costs you big money to replace (upwards of $1500 if your friendly Volvo garage does it). There are so many posts about failed evaporators (and ABS modules) that you know it was designed to fail and keep the Volvo service departments solvent. Otherwise all the cars would have come with the cabin air filter already installed. Volvo management is not stupid. It knows which side its bread is buttered on. If you're really interested in your car, remove the entire black plastic skirt. This entails removing the two wiper arms (another no-brainer), the drain on the other side, and taking out the rest of the torx screws around the skirt edge. The top edge of the black plastic skirt tucks into a 5/8th-inch wide piece of flat molding, the other edge into the bottom edge of the windshield. The molding pulls loose with no effort. It's not glued. With the big plastic skirt out of the way, clean your windshield down to the edge, underneath the big shroud and whatever else looks dirty, install your air filter, and reassemble. Putting the windshield wiper arms back on is easy. There are two little white dots built into the windshield. Simply put the arms back on, align the edges of the blades with the white dots, and screw the nuts down. That simple. Dick
|
