It’s easy! And you’ll breath clean air!
All the air that comes into your TDI (when the windows are up) comes through the cabin filter. Lots of air goes through the filter each day for months or years at a time. Although it does its best to filter out pollen, dirt, debris, bits of trees, and rodents, it gets tired. Although the filter replacement interval is 40K on most VWs, gurus recommend replacing the filter twice a year, in the spring and fall. It’s literally a 5 minute job, only requires a phillips head screwdriver.
Where is it?
This may be the toughest part. It’s at the base of the windshield, on the passenger side, under the plenum cover, or rain tray.
It even has its own access door, held in place with four phillips head screws.
Access & Replacement
First, peel back the gasket that seals the back of the engine compartment.
Then, loosen and remove the four screws that hold the cover in place
Once the screws are out (the upper part of the rain tray is a good place to store them), tip the front of the cover up and lift it out of the car. Don’t pull too hard as there’s a narrow piece that fits under the cover near the hood hinge. You don’t want to break that. But move it around a bit and it’ll come out.
Then the filter is in front of you, in its holder
You want to remove the filter in its holder, then replace the filter and put the holder back in the car. Remove the filter by pressing the tabs that lock the holder in place.
One they’re free the filter will tip up and slide right out of its base.
The filter on the right has been in the car for about 2 years (shame on us). The one on the left is new. Sometimes they’re much worse: we’ve seen mouse nests in many.
See, it does do some work. Catches leaves and twigs, too.
Take the new filter out of its box, and set it into the base. Note that there is a top and bottom, and that the direction of airflow is indicated on the cardboard sides of the filter. You can see it in the comparison of old and new filters above
Be sure to lap the ends of the filter over the end of the holder, as shown below
Once the filter is in its base, put it back in the holder by tipping the back tabs into their receivers in the base, and clicking the clips into place. You can reach around behind the filter if necessary to make sure its set in its base
Once it’s in tip the cover back into its location, once again being careful not to force it and bend or break the plastic.
You’re done! Enjoy the fresh air, increased fan efficiency, and better A/C that a clean filter offers.
Reference Part Numbers
1J0129620 – Jetta/Golf TDI A4 Air Filter.
Any tips on how to tip the cover back into its location. (the last step). Every time I change my filter this is the PITA part. Eventually I always somehow get it to fit back but not after much longer than I would like. The left side seems to be the hard part.
If you look in the void where the filter goes in you can see a peice of sheetmetal sticking down a 1/4 in or so in the path on the left side roof of area .I just took a screwdriver and finessed the filter under it.
It can be difficult. The trick is getting it around the hood hinge: I usually try to insert that corner first and sometimes, not always, it falls into place.
I find that starting vertically, pushing the filter tray in a bit, then going horizontal gets around that. Then again, mine is broken…
I’ve never had a problem getting hte cover back in place… getting the filter clipped into the back of the housing, however, has been annoying at times… But after 9 filters (every 20K miles), I’ve had a fair amount of practice…
the first (and only time I did the replacement, i ended up with a large water leak on the interior passenger side. I’ve been reluctant to do this maintenance ever since then (156,000 miles)
what did I do wrong?
Good info
Bill,
I got that water leak also. In my cast it was caused by the foam piece that I nocked out in the hood channel. There is one on each side and it seems to seal the chanel. When I replaced it the leak disappeared.
Rick
thanks for the info. this is a helpful instruction. i also came across a video on change cabin air filter in Youtube. But i think yours is better
Hi thank you for your post.
when I tried to replace the cabin air filter I noticed that the plastic cover was broken in many parts (They must have broken it during last maintenance). I can’t find the reference for this part, any idea ? (I have a 2003 Jetta)
Thank you,
John