Not every vehicle comes with a cabin air filter.  If your vehicle does have one it is located on the passenger side of the vehicle in one of three locations.  It could be under the hood, in the glove box or under the dash.  If you suffer from allergies, having a cabin air filter could be a good thing as it takes the pollen out of the air so you aren’t breathing it in your vehicle.  What happens is that some shops don’t check the cabin air filter on inspections so sometimes it doesn’t get changed and it gets clogged up.  If it gets clogged up you will notice the it sometimes start to smell inside your vehicle, or when you turn your defrost on high it won’t blow very well onto the windshield.  Many shops have told me that they have seen moles make homes in peoples cabin air filters or they will be chock full of leaves if someone parks their vehicle under a tree.

The other thing that happens is sometimes the book says it has a cabin air filter and when the technician goes looking for it they can’t find it or it will be an empty box!  Some vehicles say they don’t have a cabin air filter and it turns out they do!  The only thing I could think of is when you buy the base model of a vehicle it likely doesn’t have a cabin air filter but if you move up in trim levels it will come with a cabin air filter.  The books aren’t always that specific though.

I was giving a ladies car care clinic and a lady read in the book that she has a cabin air filter so on the break we went digging through the glove box and found where it was.  It actually had to filters and they were both full of crap.  So we had technician put anew one in for her and she was just so excited that she found out she had a cabin air filter and that we changed it!