It does matter the mode! I broke mine 2 years ago had to replace whole cabin air box! Got Lexus to do it thank god. Arm snapped. I didn't know. Ac wasn't getting cold enough after that.

Welp I guess mine was in the right mode then because mine is fine lol

Yep lol...

If it isnt in "recirculate mode" the plastic piece you need to slide out of the way to access the air filter is "locked" in place. If you force it open you will break the mechanism that opens/closes it based on your climate control settings.

Oh!

My friend did it. Costed him a little over $1000 to fix. The labor charge was the killer.

Damn definitely make sure its in recirculation mode lol

Really a poor design, don't you think?

Hell yea..

I have tested F Sport intake system on my IS250 over several months now and I gain roughly 1 mpg plus an aggressive sound @3000k RPM +. Not to mentioned it has 5 HP gain which seems small but also the cheapest per HP gain we can have in this car.

Also, I only have to clean the f sport filter every 30k miles or so without any replacement.

Also, I want to clarify that there are 2 filters being discussed here:
1. Engine filter in the engine base. This can be removed when the engine is off. It doesn't matter if it is on circulation mode or not. F Sport filter is put in here and since it is high flow, this creates more efficient air flow than the paper OEM one.
2. Cabin air-filter inside the cabin air box in which removal will require "circulation mode". There is NO F Sport cabin air-filter here.

Ok so I think I may have fudged something up. I know I said I changed my air filter with no problems, but I don't know. I feel hot air coming through my vents when it is on recirc. Also, there is a chicken farm we drive by when we go home to visit......when we drive by it we normally put it on recirculation so we can't smell it. Well when we do it in my car the smell still comes through.....and not faint either.

I never paid attention this could have always been like this and I never really noticed, but I can't help but wonder if I did something.

Are these the kinds of things that would happen from changing the filter in the wrong mode? If not why is my recirculation mode basically also my fresh air mode? lol

That's how my car is now, bought it like that. Previous owner probably replaced the air filter incorrectly by putting it in the wrong mode. Doesn't bother me as much though. lol

If it was NOT in recirculation mode then you would've had to break the plastic piece to get into the cabin air filter. So then resulting it would not ever close to bring in fresh air from the outside and would be recirculating air all the time bc of the door that closes when its not in recirculation mode.

Oh boo....now I still don't know my problem LOL!!