DUI4Less

I can't believe K&N does not stand behind their products. It is hard to trust what they claimed and if it could do any better for our engines. This is found from BBB website:

KIM'S CATCH OF THE DAY

K & N FILTERS


HERE'S THE CATCH: Consumers buy air filters based upon the seller's claims of their superiority, with seemingly no drawbacks. When the filters fail, so do other parts of the consumer's car, the warranty, and the company's responses to its complaints. The company's unfulfilled claims remain overinflated.


K&N Engineering, located in Riverside, sells air filters through its website. On the website they describe their air filter's "unique characteristics" which they themselves developed 30 years ago in their desire to win motocross races: a filter that is "washable, reusable, and built to last for the life of an engine." "A Revolution in Air Filter Technology" they claim.


Other claims are that using the filter will NOT void your vehicle warranty, that they warrant the filter for 10 years or one million miles, that it's "engineered to last the life of your engine," that it's designed to "increase horsepower and acceleration" and more.


The filters are described as four to six sheets of cotton gauze layered between two sheets of aluminum wire mesh, pleated and oiled "to enhance its filtering capabilities and overall performance."


Over the years, we've received a complaint about K&N Filters from time to time, but only five altogether in the last three years. Nevertheless, we assign the company an "F" rating. Part of the reason for that rating may become clear from the complaint of Ken Anderson, which he filed with us late last December.


Anderson, who owns a 2002 Nissan Xterra, is a U.S. Army Sergeant First Class with 21 years of military service to his credit at this point and now forwardly deployed in Germany. According to his complaint, he replaced his air filter with one of K&N's, and approximately 100 miles later, his "service engine soon" light came on. He took the car to the dealer, where the trouble was diagnosed as a faulty oxygen sensor.


Anderson had the repairs made under his warranty, but the same problem recurred, caused, again, by a faulty oxygen sensor. This time the mechanics found that the K&N filter was the source of the problem, but this time Nissan declined to cover the repair costs because of the K&N filter that had been installed.


K&N, to whom Anderson first complained, was little help. Anderson reminded them that their answer, in their website's Q&As, to the question of whether use of K&N's filter would void the vehicle's factory warranty, was that it is against the law for a manufacturer to require use of a specific brand of air filter unless it provides a replacement air filter, free of charge, under the terms of the warranty. Yet his experience had been otherwise.


Another question was "Can an engine get too much airflow?" K&N?s answer was no; an engine can take in a fixed volume of air, depending on the engine's size. Yet Anderson had been told, at the time of his vehicle's most recent repairs, that the vehicle was receiving too much air, and because the computer was trying to compensate for the extra air by adding more fuel to the engine, the oxygen sensor set off the codes to service the engine. In response, K&N wanted Anderson to return the filter (at a cost of almost as much as that of the filter itself) so that they could evaluate it and decide whether to refund anything beyond the cost of the filter. Anderson was disinclined to pay further shipping costs in addition to those he had originally paid in order to get his $44. So far, then, he is out a total of $194, which includes the replacement air filter and the oxygen sensor repairs. It does not include Nissan's charges for diagnosing the problem.


K&N did not respond to the complaint Anderson filed with us. Nor did the company respond to that of a Nebraska consumer who incurred a $444 repair bill when oil from service of the filter migrated and damaged his car's fuel injectors. Despite this complainant?s having obtained a small claims court judgment, K&N's general counsel advised him to drop the claim or accept the cost of the filter only.


KIM'S ADVICE: DON'T GET CAUGHT


A few tips can help you avoid making a bad purchase and incurring a costly repair job:
It's very important to get a reliability report on the company before you do business. There's never a reason not to get a report, but it may be even more important in proportion to how attractive the offer is.


Using a credit card to pay for the purchase may help in the case of a product that fails soon after purchase.


Check your warranty carefully before you use parts other than the manufacturer's.


Don't accept all of what you see on a website at face value. In this case the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, to which the K&N website refers, does prohibit requiring a purchaser to buy an item from a particular company to use with the warranted product in order to be eligible for service under its warranty.


What K&N doesn't tell you is that a manufacturer is within its rights to specify that the warranty will not cover use of parts that are not equivalent in design or quality to its own parts. If you decide to use other parts, use caution unless you're expert at determining the quality of such parts.


Finally, your warranty may well exclude consequential damages which, as all K&N complainants learned, can result in repair costs that far exceed the cost of the part that caused the damage.

NYbsbl04

ok

fsttyms1

um yea ok! A filter wont do the above. and the only real way a engine can have too much air is when the fuel system cant keep up (which will only happen with forced induction)

TunedTL

Why didn't the man just replace K&N with stock filter, O2 sensor should not reporting any error if K&N is to blame. Personally I doubt it. As Kris mentioned, a slightly higher flow filter is no forced induction, if Nissan's engine can't handle it, something else is wrong.

subtledreamer

that's what i was thinking too...

fsttyms1

And oxygen doesnt kill the sensor, Fuel and heat do!

Chet03TL-S

The K&N filters have some sort of oil when you clean them right? I have heard of some users over oiling their filters and ruining their O2 sensors.

TunedTL

You mean Toyota's MAF.
MAF is just next to air filter, upstream in intake plumbing, O2 or A/F senor are way downstream in exhaust plumbing. If someone overoils K&N filter, most likely MAF is covered with oil coming off K&N. Not to defend K&N, but new K&N filter coming off the shelf is pre-oiled. over oil is most likely when someone tried to clean the filter and re-oil it. But MAF is not damaged, all it takes is 5 minute, a Phillip screw driver, and a can of carb cleaner or brake cleaner to remove whatever is covering the MAF.
The only way you can foul O2 sensor is to pour K&N oil down the intake pipe so the engine can't burn it off and shove down the exhaust, I don't think anyone is stupid enough to do that.

Lyle2002

I've had a K&N filter on all 3 of my cars since I bought my first one 1o years ago and never have had one issue with them. Acura Integra, Toyota Corolla, Acura TL. Hard to believe a drop in replacement filter could cause any damage.

ou sig

it wont - this guy is just anti K&N for some reason - he probably got fired or something

sbuswell

this thread is BS!! K&N filters ROCK!!!!

DudeLuv

Agreed.....when I dropped mine in my '02 TL-P with 63K miles, yes, the stock filter was clogged with bugs and debris, but the response was immediate.
Insisted the wife take it for a spin around the block and she came back smiling, "Wow, big difference."

Chet03TL-S

TunedTL: You're right. That's the info I was trying to remember.

Luke7

I put a K&N in my Harley and it made a difference. Anyone have any experiences with increased gas mileage in their TL? I'm considering putting one in my TL.

Lyle2002

I have only had mine in the TL for one gas tank, but it was about 1.5 mpg improvement. I think it sounds a little nicer when I accelerate hard on top of that. Plus it is a lifetime filter so I never have to replace those paper ones, just clean it every 50K miles.

DUI4Less

I am still debate of which filter would be best to use. Do you have any comment on these test results: www.bobistheoilguy.com/airfilter/airtest3.htm. My instinct judgement is: dirt is in the air, more airflow more dirt, less airflow less dirt, no airflow no dirt. I am sure some of us will decide which air filter to use depending on our needs...but the k&n sounds too good to be true - more airflow and less dirt - contradicting the law of nature and physics.

fsttyms1

K&N has been around ALONG time. Never heard of any information that was legit stating they are a bad product. Ive had acouple cars with well over 250 on the engine while running a K&N filter the whole time. MY current TL has almost 200k on it and the engine is just as good as the day i bought it.

Zilverz

To be more specific it is when the Fuel Injector Duty Cycle is maxed out to 100% Im not sure what CC the stock TL injectors are but a lot of cars are fitted with injectors running at 80% and could handle an addition 20% more HP before the duty cycle is maxed and then you would need to upgrade to a higher CC injector

ou sig

the stock injectors are fine even with the Comptech Supercharger, so I think ours are like you described (not near 100% useage with the engine in stock form)

seattle dale

i luv my K&N filter, never heard of any complaints up until now, except mabe a few fitment issues?

MikePA

Why can't this thread be ? It was started by a troll.

dstafford

I have used a custom made pipe with k&n pulling air from underneath. Almost a ram air system on a 02 tls never any problems.

DUI4Less

Who the fook are you? Your thousand posts are a joke. Don't read it if you don't like it. It could be helpful info to other members before they decided to purchase the product. What an A$$. Get the fook outta here. take it ez on a noob.

ou sig

you are a noob and a troll, and your "information" is a joke

ou sig

mods - close this worthless thread PLEASE!

DUI4Less

Why don't you dump people try to close it. What a JERK trying to be smart a$$.

bks02tl

I've had K&N filters on all my vehicles, and with the exception of my Land Rover, I have had 0 problems. The LR issue was due to the fact that we had just finished an off road event and the K&N turned brown after the mud bog. The LR dealership actually replaced the filter for me for free, with a paper filter, and gave me back the K&N for me to clean. I have nothing negative to say about K&N. My 02 TL runs better and produces a deeper, stronger tone under the hood when it's revved. Kudos to K&N.

MikePA

Don't feed the troll.

slewis78

FWIW: Maybe the original post wasn't so much to debate whether K&N was a good product or not, but just to comment that their customer service was lousy and they didn't stand by what they claimed on their website (i.e. if a dealership refused warranty service because of adding the filter, that contracts what their website said).

Still, didn't the article say they had 5 complaints in the 3 years? IDK how many complaints other companies get (I mean, IDK if 5 in 3 years is low or not), but it seems low to me (considering how many K&N filters there are out there and how long K&N has been in business).

Nyshadow

There is no reason to start calling people names and acting retarded simply because you don't agree what he posted. The article is actually from the BBB website, and he posted it because he though it might help people. Also if you notice that Kim (Which is the person who actually wrote the article) stated, over the course of 3 years they have gotten a total of 5 complaints on K&N, now if you think about how many air filters they make and not to mention they also have a oil filter line as well, to only have 5 complaints over 3 years is AWESOME!. So even the information posted still tells what a great filter K&N is, the culprit here is the BBB rating system. So lets all be adults here.

JoBiggs

lmao......

carl m

i've heard of 2 negatives about K&N's in my experience:

1) some people have done testing showing that K&N doesn't filter dirt as well as standard paper element filters.

2) on some cars, the oil from the K&N will foul the MAF. typically from over-oiling.

that said, i've run them in a couple different cars without any issues.

dreem1er

iTrader: (2)

01tl4tl

Any testing that was not heads up- tested before and after on a TL, is worthless info

We dont have the issue with oiling a sensor wire, and as long as you follow the instructions when cleaning and re-oiling- everything is fine

When I switched from paper to K&N- I had to clean the throttle body plate-
does that mean all paper filters are worthless too?

AMGala

iTrader: (4)

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