Regardless of what the technicians at your native drive-up oil change store attempt to promote you, changing a automotive’s cabin air filter is normally a quite simple job. Most automobiles’ cabin air filters are deep contained in the glove compartment or someplace simply accessible underneath the hood, however typically automakers resolve to squirrel it away someplace infuriatingly tough to achieve. Sadly, the latter applies to Volkswagen’s ultra-cool if slow-selling ID Buzz, which for some motive virtually requires disassembly of your entire entrance of the automotive with the intention to substitute the cabin air filter.
I cherished driving the ID Buzz after I lived with one for every week, however now that I’ve discovered how absurdly tough Volkswagen made it to interchange a easy half that requires comparatively frequent alternative, I’ve combined emotions. When automakers do issues like this, it forces most homeowners to take their automobile right into a service middle to have a easy filter alternative carried out, which in fact requires them to pay greater than they need to. Come on, Volkswagen, the ID Buzz is already costly sufficient!
That is ridiculous
On this TikTok, a technician paperwork the prolonged technique of swapping out the cabin air filter on a 2024 ID Buzz. First, it’s important to pop the Buzz’s comical entrance service flap, disconnect {an electrical} connector, disconnect the windshield wiper fluid reservoir, unclip one of many cables, ans unscrew two bolts in opposition to the bulkhead. Subsequent, it’s important to open the entrance doorways to unscrew an higher trim piece from the aspect of the Buzz earlier than unscrewing a bolt that fastens one other panel above the entrance hood flap and repeat that course of on the opposite aspect of the Buzz. As soon as that is performed, you raise that higher entrance trim piece off the automobile and unplug one other connector from it earlier than unfastening a material flap that covers the cabin air filter housing. Then you possibly can lastly take away the panel that hides the air filter and substitute it with a brand new one. When you’re performed, you in fact have to interchange the entire trim items you simply eliminated, plug the entire electrical connections again in, reconnect the windshield wiper fluid reservoir, and shut the hood flap. It is so simple as that!
Clearly I am being sarcastic. This course of is infuriatingly overcomplicated, and it leaves huge margins for error whether or not it is misplacing bolts, scratching exterior panels, or reconnecting issues improperly. I get that the ID Buzz is formed in another way than all different automobiles available on the market, however I see no possible justification for such a convoluted strategy to finding the cabin air filter. One factor’s for certain: it will hold Volkswagen supplier’s service departments in enterprise.