Think about the last time you drove on the highway behind a vehicle with exhaust fumes blowing out in the form of black smoke. The smell was likely an awful thing to experience. But what was worse was the how it spread pollutants in the air. Those kinds of moments highlight the importance of air filters in your car. If you’re curious about their role in protecting your health, you should keep this information in mind.
How They Function
As air moves through your car’s HVAC system, it must go through filters normally located around the glove box. These filters trap pollen, dust, and other air-based pollutants harmful to the body. Higher-quality carbon-activated filters can also capture gases and odors from other vehicles’ exhaust. This allows you to breathe fresh air without worrying that pollutants are hurting your lungs while driving.
Aid Your Air Conditioning System
Maintaining a quality air filter in your car enables your air conditioning system to function efficiently. As an air filter gets dirty and nears the end of its use, it begins to inhibit how well the AC system can provide clean air. In other instances, a bad air filter causes it to stop doing its job altogether. If you’ve experienced times where your AC isn’t blowing cold air on a hot day, one potential culprit could have been your air filters. Because they help keep the air you blow directly into your car clean, you must remember to replace them every 12,000 to 15,000 miles you drive with them.
Lower Your Emissions
In a sense, a clogged air filter chokes your engine. When this goes on for too long, you begin to damage other components of your car, such as the spark plugs, and cause issues with airflow. Other components, such as the emission control system, struggle to operate correctly and lead to other problems with how easily your car can function when driving. Having incorrect air-fuel mixtures in your vehicle also leads to potentially damaging results. Therefore, a dirty filter can harm your car’s engine.
Your car’s air filters are responsible for many crucial functions for both your vehicle and body. By knowing the importance of air filters in your car, you become more knowledgeable about its functioning and can act correctly when you notice that it has an issue. It’s good to have less to worry about the next time you find yourself driving through a plume of dark exhaust on the road.
