Anyone else have the K&N CAI? My startup has been groggy at best lately and the whistle sounds a bit muffled now. I'm thinking I have to clean the filter. Does anyone else know the best schedule to keep up for cleaning the filter? Best products to clean it with? I know they sell a cleaning kit, but i'm curious if it's even necessary or worth getting.

how loud is the whistle originally? I'm thinking of getting one too.. Do you hear the whistle when the car is on idle?

The whistle sounded much crisper/louder before. You only hear it when you start the engine and accelerate / just after you let off the accelerator. You don't hear it when idle.

you need the cleaning kit to clean the filter.

i would check the filter every 9K miles or so and clean it if it's hmm.. dirty.. (aka.. black)

Sounds like I just hit my scheduled maintanence time then...

Any ideas for the best place to get the cleaning kit?

I have about 15k on my CAI with the original filter never cleaned.. I looked at it a few days ago when I was under my car and it still looks pretty clean..

I think that water jacket keeps alot of the dirt out.

^^ yeah.. water jacket/sleeve thing helps out a bit :)

but uhh.. any auto store should have the cleaning kit. i got mine at kragen.

When it's dirty.

i got a cleaning kit when i baught my intake (injen) it came with one :)

^ In the box dave?

yup, with the intake. funny, the Injen intake came with the K&N Intake Recharger kit. :P i forget who i baught it from but idk if this kit comes with the injen intake.... or i got lucky lol.

Just cleaned my air filter.. I do not have a CAI however. Man that thing was black... I used the K&N Recharge kit.. got it from their site since no one near me carried the filter...

How clean were you able to get it? I hear those things are hell to clean. How long did it take? I've heard people just replacing them rather than actually going through the process of cleaning it

I've heard people just replacing them rather than actually going through the process of cleaning it

I was even thinking of doing that with the CAI... sadly the filters are $50 a pop. Recharge kit it is. Picked up my wiper replacements too while i was at autozone.

dang.. that means i have to take off my wheel and my front bumper to check the damn filter... oh well, i'll check that @ around 10k.

Well that was a longass filter cleaning session...
Took a few hours. Found out I'm missing a screw from under my front bumper too. Prolly the big nasty screw that was removed from my tire not too long ago...

I got most of the crud off the filter, but prolly not all of it. Its good enough though. Definitely noticable sound difference.