Engine air filter change

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MitchH

Member
Joined
Jul 21, 2020
Messages
5
I have a dumb question: How do you replace the engine air filter in the e-tron? I'm not sure how the housing is removed, and I didn't want to just yank on it, afraid I might break something. Of course, I've changed other car filters zillions of times, and it has always been obvious how to remove the air filter housing/cover...

I bought a used 2016 e-tron last year and last week brought the car in to the dealer for the HV battery recall. That went well (they replaced the battery cover), but they also did the maintenance check and said I needed to replace the air filter (~42K miles on car now). For ~$150!

So I went ahead and ordered a filter from Amazon for ~$20, figuring I'll just slap in the new one, but no! Googling and the usual Youtube search yielded nothing, so here I am.

Thanks for any advice!
 
I had that question as well.
There are screws on the under side of the air filter box assembly that's why it won't open.
You need to remove the box from the 2 hoses by squeezing the hose clamps.
Nothing is every easy with Audi.
 
huaaaaa":fmfsq27o said:
Here’s a good video, look at 2:23 for engine air filter.

https://youtu.be/C-uGmuBlRYs

I found that googling for a 1.4 VW sometimes gets info for basically the same engine.

That was helpful, thanks. :)

My first challenge is how to remove the engine cover--that was the thing that I was afraid of breaking. But then I found some good pictures of the engine cover (including the underside) on e-bay that gave me a clue. Looks like just rubber grommets hold the cover on--I think now that I know where they are, I can lift at the proper locations, and it should come free. I'll dig into it this weekend, and I'll post any tips (maybe even some pics) on the process.
 
bruuster":2cgjdcbb said:
I had that question as well.
There are screws on the under side of the air filter box assembly that's why it won't open.
You need to remove the box from the 2 hoses by squeezing the hose clamps.
Nothing is every easy with Audi.

I was wondering what you were referring to here, then after looking at huaaaaa's video, I realized you were talking about the filter box. I hadn't even gotten that far, as I was stuck on the engine cover removal! (But you can see by my reply to huaaaaa that I might have it figured out. I will report back later!)
 
I figured out how to remove the engine cover. It's really simple, but I think I was right to be nervous about just grabbing it anywhere. If you grab where the grommets are that hold it in place, then it pops right out. I made a little clip to illustrate:

https://youtu.be/yXfG-SDtww8
 
I went to change my air filter today, got stymied, then found this great air-filter change video on YouTube and it was an easy job after all. Amusingly it was posted one day after this thread was started about a year ago.

https://youtu.be/BIpW3tFcpss
 
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