RE: 84 4000S Quattro Questions

["Rich, Jack" <JRich@Kronos.com>]

K&N claims something like 50k or more miles per cleaning, which I don't
believe at all, either, though I haven't heard of the oil drying up on them.
I'm aware that some people claim they don't do as good a job at filtering as
a paper filter, but I've never heard it claimed it was because of drying
out.  Does oil "dry"?  At most, doesn't it just get sticky?  That's the
whole principle of operation of the K&N, is that the dirt sticks to the oil.
Too much dirt will mean not enough oil to stick to any more dirt, but IMO no
dirt means sticky fibers, not shrunken dry ones.

I don't think you should be any less willing to clean your K&N than to
replace a paper filter.  It's exactly the same work time on the car, just
the extra of cleaning and waiting to dry before the re-install, which is the
price you pay for having a K&N regardless of whether the install is a PITA.
It just makes you not want to do it as two installs with a temporary paper
filter.

Jack Rich

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	John Cunningham [SMTP:johnc@together.net]
> "Rich, Jack" wrote:
> 
> > The filter is a K&N, which is a permanent filter.  It was put on at
> around
> > 95-100K miles around 3 years ago and has been cleaned once (10k/1+ year
> > ago?), so it should still be fairly clean.
> 
> it's doubtful that your intake tracts are.  those K&N filters need to be
> re-oiled fairly regularly or else they dry out and the gauze fibers shrink
> up
> and they don't do much filtering anymore.  while they work great if you
> can do
> this fairly frequently, it's actually a bad call for a car where the
> filter is a
> PITA to get to because you just won't be able or willing to check and
> reoil
> it.   there are plenty of reports of dirt making it past K&N filters to
> back
> this up (I recall Phil has some opinion on this topic ;^)   ).
> 
> JC
>