Has anyone owned one or the other that can comment on the durability?

I like the fact that they can be washed and reused, but I wonder how they really hold up over time.
How easy are they to clean?

The claims about horsepower gain seem like hogwash to me but I am more interested in the durability of the filter.

If they really do hold up I may pick one up.
I plan on keeping my car until I hit 200k mile
Considering the stock filter is over 20 bucks it won't take long for this to pay for itself.

 

Stock filter and air inlet duct is best for long term IMO. You can do much better on air filters on ebay, amazon, rockauto, etc.

Some folks like them anyway despite no benefits, and marketing manages to do a brisk business selling to these folks.

good luck

 

Washing and re-oiling a filter doesn't sound like fun. I'll just spend the $15-20 a year on a new OEM filter.

 

Years ago, I had a K&N filter on my Honda CRX Si, which was modified with a lot of aftermarket parts, it was no fun cleaning and re-oiling the filter, even though it wasn't difficult.

These days, I just stick with the OEM filters and don't worry about it.

I don't even recommend these aftermarket cleanable air filters.

 

I've had them on a couple different cars & never saw a power increase. I had K&N filters that duplicate the shape of the stock filter - not K&N cold-air-intake systems.

Not too much of a pain to clean & oil, but the time to allow it to dry was inconvenient. Any more the stock filters last a really long time. So I haven't had any real motivation to get K&N for my present cars.

 

I've played around with the k&n's. Not much of a difference with the stock style filters. They are handy in that you can clean and re-oil them. Really its maybe $60 initially for the filter and cleaner kit and then every few months you clean it. It will eventually pay for itself. Just don't over oil the filter.

Tests have shown that k&n actually does worse filtering than other brands though.

I'm gonna pull a "shipo" here and say stock is best- at least for the general public... Texas is right too, which is what I recommend to everyone- ebay filters.

When it comes to aftermarket cone filters and intakes it's a different story there. I'm using AEM now.

 

i run a k%n on mine in the stock air box and it does great,,,i only clean it once a year,,wife only works 1 mile from home with a few trips to town,,29 miles round trip per week, it is good for my application. your results will vary,

 

Dare I ask? How do you know it "does great"?

As a general rule, this type of "filter" is a rather poor filter when it comes to the job of, well, filtering. If you go over to the BobIsTheOilGuy [dot] com web site and look at the Used Oil Analysis (UOA) reports, it's pretty easy to spot the oil samples taken from engines using such filters. How? They're the UOAs with very high silicone (sand) numbers, often with high metal counts (from accelerated engine wear) as well.

As for cost justifying such a filter; here in New England, a relatively low dust part of the country, a factory type filter is typically good for an easy 70,000+ miles, as such, one would need to drive lots and lots of miles to justify a cleanable filter based upon the replacement cost of filters.

 

I do not have scientific analysis to compare a paper element . However for my application I say it does great based on the fact it picked a bit in 0-60(2/10 of a a second), I have yet to have any issues with a K%N air filter in the past 15 yrs of using there products and the fact I never buy another paper filter is more than enough justification to warrant my claim. Like I stated, your results will vary.

 

There is a lot of road construction and dusty roads near where I work. I can't ever recall an oem filter lasting more than 15k miles. By that point it's completely black. But again where I drive it's a dirty, dusty environment. There is an gravel pit directly behind where I work and lots of dump trucks hauling dirt. To me long term a reusable would be worth it. It's 15 bucks at Napa for a paper filter. I think it would pay for itself.