Is It Time for Your Buick or GMC to Get a New Car Air Filter?

The engine air filter is housed in a box situated just inside the radiator grille. Its job is to filter the air before it passes into the engine. As time passes, this filter will become blocked with debris and needs to be replaced. As your GMC dealership, we’d like to tell you about some of the signs that you need a new car air filter.

Signs It’s Time for a New Car Air Filter From Your GMC Dealership

Black Exhaust Smoke

Black exhaust smoke is never a good sign. It means that your engine is expelling large quantities of unburnt fuel. Your engine requires 14x more air than fuel for combustion, and all this air must pass through the air filter. If your air filter is blocked, the ratio of air to fuel will drop dramatically, and your engine will become fuel-rich.

Once combustion occurs in a cylinder, the cylinder opens and dumps the residue into the exhaust system. In a fuel-rich engine, the spark plugs can’t ignite the mixture correctly, and only a small amount of fuel will burn. Most of the fuel in the cylinder is forced out of the exhaust pipe, and you may even see small sparks as fuel molecules touch the hot exhaust. We can quickly fix this issue by replacing your air filter.

Check Engine Light

The check engine light illuminates in response to any problem that affects your engine. As we saw above, a blocked air filter will turn your engine fuel-rich. In a fuel-rich engine, the plugs must work harder than they should due to the lack of air. This will cause them to wear out faster. In addition, the large quantities of fuel cover the plugs in sticky black carbon, which further reduces their effectiveness.

Sensors in the engine will detect the overworked plugs, and they’ll also identify the high fuel concentration. The sensors will inform your computer, which logs these problems with error codes and then lights up the check engine light. Our technicians will replace your air filter, and they’ll check each plug for signs of damage. Damaged plugs will be either cleaned or replaced depending on the extent of the damage.

Dirty Filter

Unlike many other important engine components, the air filter is easy to check and doesn’t require any specialized knowledge or equipment. The air filter is housed in the air filter box, and the location of this box can be found in your car manual. Once you’ve located the box, you can easily open it to check the filter’s condition.

A healthy filter is white or cream, but this color changes as it accumulates dirt. If your filter is brown or black, it needs immediate replacement. We’ll confirm the filter’s condition and replace it in minutes while you wait.

A filter replacement is very inexpensive and it will boost your vehicle performance. Call our service department today at Granite Buick GMC in Rapid City, SD.

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