Air intake filter - yes or no?

[texas_star_TM3]

Well there's no need for oil catch cans on these cars so Tesla owners have to be a little more creative in coming up with unnecessary mods.

lol. i remember those "oil catch cans"... because otherwise your EcoBoost engine will die!!!!!! lol ....

 

[MLXXXp]

Do you find any debris trapped by the screen?

No, not much, but I always park in my garage and so far haven't taken it anywhere where there was much potential for debris to fall on or blow into the car.

or is @heavyD correct that this is an unnecessary mod?

I guess it would depend on your situation.

 

[RMannino]

Farmogo works very well and doesn’t restrict. I also have the after market full water deflector under the frunk hood that doesn’t allow water to get to the air intake.

Farmogo after 6 months! Glad I have it and glad I just changed it out. All that crud would have been in my lower filters.
I put the white box next to the old filter to compare the color white it should be.

 

[kcleung]

my old bmw 3er has a intake filter. dont know why tesla designed the ventilation like this. if load on the fan motor is a concern, whats the draw back of removing the hepa filter (dont need double filtering i suppose)

 

[Luke0022]

This is what I installed. It's not a "filter", it's a screen. Without this, I don't see how pine needles, maple helicopters, dead moths, etc. don't just fall straight through the slatted cover into the cabin airbox.
View attachment 684538

Thanks heaps. I discovered this on the weekend with an old disgusting filter hidden in it. I threw it out and will leave it out

 

[wws]

There is a screen where the intake air passes through the firewall. Debris does accumulate there and needs to be occasionally cleaned out. It is a lot easier and more effective to have the screen at the top of the duct though. Since my post #14 in this thread, I've also added some minimally restrictive filtering material from Home Depot trimmed to lay on top of my homemade screen. (Web 4 in. x 12 in. Vent Filters (12-Pack) WVENT)

The filtering material after 13 months:

 

[texas_star_TM3]

The filtering material after 13 months:

View attachment 971710

that doesnt look minimally restrictive to me though... so you are running a fairly fine cabin type air filter over the intake and then run it again through the cabin air filter... that's a lot of work for the blower... in the HVAC world the easiest way to burn out your system is to use overly restrictive filters with a MERV rating above what your unit can handle...

 

[wws]

that doesnt look minimally restrictive to me though... so you are running a fairly fine cabin type air filter over the intake and then run it again through the cabin air filter... that's a lot of work for the blower... in the HVAC world the easiest way to burn out your system is to use overly restrictive filters with a MERV rating above what your unit can handle...

It is this from Home Depot. It was the least restrictive I could find. They didn't even bother to give it a MERV rating.