When your experienced Gary Knurek An Authorized Goodyear Dealer service professional technician changes your oil, he will also inspect your air filter. You shouldn’t need a new filter at every oil change, but you will need to change it regularly. Heed your technician’s auto advice if they tell you to change your filter. It’s not costly, and it makes a big difference to your SUV.

An air filter does what its name implies: it filters stuff out of the air. Air is drawn into your engine through the filter because your engine needs air to burn fuel. If the filter weren’t there, a lot of dust and debris would come into the SUV engine with the air. That dust and debris would get hot, burn, and produce all kinds of ash and gumminess that would eventually clog up your engine.

Drop in an air filter and voilá! Problem solved.

But air filters themselves get clogged up with all the junk they clean out of the Rochester hills air. This doesn’t allow the junk into the SUV engine, but it does block up the airflow. A blocked airflow will reduce engine efficiency.

An engine needs about 12,000 gallons of air to burn just one gallon of gasoline. Think of a runner. If he is breathing well, he can run well. But if he has a lung condition, he won’t be able to generate the oxygen necessary to keep his cells powered up. He won’t be able to run at peak efficiency.

Or consider a vacuum cleaner. Even without the light, you can tell when the vacuum bag is full because the machine just doesn’t clean anymore. Change the bag and its efficiency immediately improves.

So keep your SUV breathing well by keeping its air filter clean. That’s good car care.

Troy drivers who get a charge out of the feeling of power in their engine might consider upgrading their air filter. Talk to your honest Gary Knurek An Authorized Goodyear Dealer tech. Premium air filters have been proven to increase horsepower and torque. So with the cost of a premium air filter, you can increase the horsepower in your engine — there’s no cheaper way to do that!

It’s also one of the least expensive and simplest elements of important routine preventive maintenance – and protects against damage to expensive SUV electronic systems. No Troy resident should have an excuse to drive around Rochester hills roads and highways with a dirty air filter.