e-man

Hey guys. I am looking to buy a used 3GS from a private party. The seller, who has owned the car since new, represented to me that he changed the cabin air filter twice over the life of the car, and neither time did he put the climate system on recirc before changing it out. I'm thinking that he must have broken something, right? What I'm trying to figure out, though, is what damage did he do, how much will it fix to cost, and what is the car missing if it's not fixed?

So, if he didn't put the car on recirc, that means he would have had to forcibly lift the trap door up and out of the way into the "recirc" position to get to the air filter to change it. If he did that, he would have broken the mechanism. Does that mean that the door is now stuck in the recirc position or does it mean that the door would simply fall back down into the "fresh air" position and the system would never be able to go into recirc? I could live with no recirc, but it would be really bad if the car was always stuck in recirc mode.

Anyone know? Thanks.

e

BinaryJay

Mine has been broken since I bought it as well, it is completely ignorable.

If it's broken it is mostly stuck in fresh air mode (door down), or you can choose to make it stuck in recirc by taping it open or something if you want. I think fresh air mode is fine unless you're driving behind some clunker that stinks. It can be repaired if you care to take the airbag and glovebox out and see if you can glue things back together (if you find all the pieces) otherwise it is expensive replace the whole shebang kind of thing.

SC4Hundred

If you don't intentionally put on fresh air mode, the car always turn on in recirculating mode, how does the owner know he really change the filters in fresh air mode? When you r test driving the car, try to change recirculating mode to fresh air mode and back to see if you hear any clicking noice, if not I think you r okay.

BinaryJay

You know because when you go to change the filter, the door swings freely. When it isn't broken, you have to force it open which is what breaks it... it must not take a whole lot of force considering how many of them are broken out there. Poor design.

e-man

Correct. It doesn't take a lot of force and yes, terrible design. The seller says he thinks it's still working because he can hear it click when he puts it on recirc. My guess is that that is an indication that it's broken. On my 430, there's no clicking at all when I put it on recirc mode. If it is broken, my main concern would be that it's stuck on recirc. If it's stuck on fresh air mode, it's not as big of a deal.

From what I understand, it's about $2000 to fix it.

arnieosp

iTrader: (1)

Not necessarily. If you search around here, this issue has been discussed at length and there was a way to fix it cheap, without tearing apart the entire dash.

Stoodo

iTrader: (4)

Interesting... I had no idea that the car need to be in a certain mode to swap the filter. I hope I didn't break mine. (I don't think I did)

Skylar978

iTrader: (1)

Same as I. Now I need to check it out!

isam250

iTrader: (7)

It's an easy fix just depending on how it's broken. If the arm is in tacked and just where the head is broken from where it fits, you can tap in a screw and you're good to go.

dapimpee

Does this happen to all Lexus or just GS?

tbilisi79

Mine was broken when I bought it. Well I wasn't happy about that and tore into it to see if I could fix the problem. Living in nyc you want to be able to take control of the fumes of the traffic.

You can check it simply by driving at highway speeds and setting the air to dash vents. Go from recirculation mode to inside mode and see if the air stops flowing .

You can also open up the glove box, take out the tray and open up the cabin filter door. Press the recirculation button and see if the flap door opens or closes.

It's an easy fix.
Look up my post, I fixed it myself and it can be done in under 2 hours and for a few bucks.

Not a big deal at all.


Now if only I could get myself to tear into the rear sunshade that stopped working a few weeks ago.

dapimpee

I just changed my cabin filter last week and didnt' even pay attention to which mode I was on. Just wonder if I have broke it or not?

e-man

I just tested this theory tonight. You are absolutely correct. For those of you who changed your cabin air filter with your car off, you probably have nothing to worry about.

Tonight I went out to my car and, with the car off, opened the glove box, removed the panel at the back of the glove box, and, to my surprise, was able to see my cabin air filter (which means that the car was already in recirc mode even though I KNOW it was on fresh air mode when I turned the car off when I got home). Just to be sure, I turned on the car with the glove box open and the cabin air filter exposed. As soon as I turned the car on, the trap door rotated closed in front of the air filter and I could no longer see the filter (which means that the system is in fresh air mode). I toggled the button a few times and watched the trap door open and close just to be sure.

Anyway, long story short, you should still ALWAYS turn on your car and put it in recirc mode before attempting to change your cabin air filter. However, if for some reason you don't, it looks like the car automatically goes into recirc mode when you turn it off, so the trap door opens and exposes the air filter without you having to do anything to gain access to it.

And, just so everyone is clear, the reason the mechanism breaks is because some people, when changing the air filter, remove the back panel, don't see the filter because the trap door is in the closed/fresh air position, and then manually open/rotate the trap door to gain access to the air filter.

e

BinaryJay

I would not be shocked if this was a change they made in later model years only after thousand and thousands of doors have already been broken.

e-man

It's a good thought, but I don't think so. My 430 is a 2006 MY, April 2005 build date. I think the issue is that people are trying to change the cabin air filter with their car running.