I don't see it in the manual, I don't see the air filter under the damn hood? Where is the location to check the engine air filter in my 2006 RL? thx.

 

if you are standing in front of your car looking under the hood, its on the right toward the side of the car above the battery area. To access the filter, you will have to remove the plastic housing cover that runs along the side. it's pretty easy to do, just a couple of plastic screws.

 

There are four screws/bolts that need to be loosened (they shouldn't come all the way out). Here's a picture of the housing:



Here's a picture of one of the bolts:



I don't think you'll need to take the battery cover off, but if you do you'll need to turn this latch 1/4 turn:


Good luck!

 

on our RLs... is there really any noticeable performance improvement from adding a K&N drop in filter?

sounds stock or is the sound different?

i have owned a couple of turbo charged cars in the past - and on both of those cars I put in a K&N drop in filter and I thought it seemed to help the car spool up / come into boost better -but turbo cars are a whole different animal when it comes to mods that alter airflow... on n/a cars, especially one like the RL, I wonder if it would do much of anything....

anyone?

 

seems more aggressive when i punch it. but not really much on hp or fuel. i too always used KN filters in my turbos.. saves on buying filters too.

 

Judging from your questions, maybe you should let the dealer or at least a mechanic do the work.

 

You'll need a 8mm socket and at least a 8" extension to loosen one of the bolts. I did'nt notice any change in sound or MPG but there may have been a slight improvement. The big advantage is that you never have to purchase another filter. K&N also claims that their filter flows more air longer than a standard paper filter, (before requiring cleaning). The drop in for my 05 RL was a part number 33-2299, about $45, direct from K&N.

 

I've had a K&N drop in filter in my 06 RL for the last few years. I notice just a slightly more sonorous low RPM note to the engine. Note sure if HP or mpg improved at all but I am happy to keep the K&N - reused it (re-oiled) twice already.

 

OK, this is funny. i really cracked up when i read this note, as i ran into the same issue this morning when i tried installing the filter myself. and no, it's not listed in the manual at all. wtf!!!

growing up, i had hondas, then after college i started driving acuras. about 13 yrs ago, i changed over to lexus, swearing never to return to acura due to how cheesey and bad the services depts and dealerships are in my area. i just returned to acura and purchased an rl earlier this week and am reminded why i left acura to begin with.

changing the filter, i called 4 diff't dealerships to speak to a tech to walk me thru getting the cover off the filter after i ran into challenges. it took the forth call before a tech could help. while changing into the K&N filter, i set my screwdriver down in front of the battery, and whoops...there went the screwdriver down the fresh air intake. how the f(&&$%%^ in the year 2010 can someone design something that can allow a screwdriver down a pipe??? so now, i have a screw driver stuck in the fresh air intake pipe. what an inferior design! i would strangle the engineer if i saw him.

in just 5 short days of owning another acura, i am reminded why lexus is beating the snot outta acura.

 

after looking at this thread, i decided to take it to a local mechanic to swap the air filter, even he had to remove the intake pipe to get the filter out.

 

This car is no different than any other car/brand, including ford's, honda's or toyota's in terms of changing the oil or air filters. This is a 15 minute job and is a 1 on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being the easiest. If you can't do it, bring it in, don't blame the dealer.

As for the screwdriver, get a telescoping magnet, $5 at an autoparts store.

 

clearly a 1, and i was able to do it... with no help from the dealerships. the point is that the dealerships in my area are bad, and their service is sub-par and they weren't blamed for anything. the entry was humorous from the original post, because i had just been there and done it.

i disagree that all cars are the same. there is nothing to disconnect in an ls400 and/or gx470 that i own(ed) other than a few easily accessible screws to install and k&n air filter. trust me. i do as much of the maintenance as i can because i want to.

 

From all cars i've had so far, the easiest one to replace the air filter was my 2003 Nissan Maxima. Not a single screw/bolt to remove, no covers to remove, no tight places to reach....just two snap on clips. It takes 3 minutes total, no joke!!!

The RL is not too bad either. It is pretty easy to do it but you need to remove a plastic cover and some screws - you need some basic tools. Not a big deal, just extra 2-3 minutes.

Btw, speaking of Toyota/Lexus ... changing the air filter on my 2007 Sienna 3.5L engine is NOT easier than the RL at all. You have to reach a couple of really hard-to-get to screws. I am very disappointed that Toyota used screws, instead of plastic clips on the back of the filter box. RL - 1, Sienna - 0!
I used to have a 2003 Ford Focus SVT, and it had the same crappy design on the air box as the Sienna.

 

I bought a 10" extension and can get to the 4 bolts easy and had no problem with removing the plastic to get to them, BUT I seem to have one problem, I DO NOT want to lose one of the screws or the washers around it. I seem to be loosening the bolts too much because someone posted earlier that the screws aren't supposed to come out of the housing but in order to get the housing to move I have to remove the screws too much.

Any advice on dealing with the screws and not loosening them too much as to possibly drop them? Do you have to loosen the top filter housing from the rubber pipe connected to it?

Thanks for reading and possibly posting.

 

Installed a K&N filter on my Acura 2003 3.2 TL today..

Maybe it's just me, but didn't feel any perceptible improvement in hp or any other difference when I went for a quick drive after changing the filter - however I am impressed by the fact that I don't need to touch it again for the next 50K miles (as they advertise, for a cleaning)..
btw: The filter that was in earlier was an AES filtech OEM part - a paper based filter that had a lot of dirt-sam in it.


-S

 

Easiest is the C series V6 engines from Honda. Four clips that you just flip. Takes 10 seconds.

 

I installed the K&N air filter in my newly acquired 07 RL this weekend, and without any previous experience under the hood of an RL, or any Acura for that matter, knowing that it makes it easier to simply remove the filter piping on the engine side from the plastic damper that sits above the filter itself would have helped me quite a bit.

I fooled around with trying to pull the entire assembly that sits above the filter high enough to quickly grab the filter out of the box, but NOTHING was working out. Finally, I simply pulled the filter piping off and then was able to move the filter housing to replace the filter.

This is for those that are running into problems when swapping the filter out!