This is what my cabin filters looked like / few other pics

Mine were real dirty too. I just did mine a month ago I've had the car for 3 years and never did it. I will be doing it every year now.

yeah they were probably original and yes they are in the same area tru...behind the glovebox..took about an hour or so to change...i should of sprayed the filters with some air freshener because now my car smells..

not sure why, was good until i changed them

i did mine when they had my dash apart, they were litterally black... like no joke

does it really matter what filter you get? i've seen charcoal filters being sold at autozone

I just changed mine just now.....it looks PRETTY bad..lol

I did mine today....took about 20 mins....really easy to do but i also have a funny smell......that is actually the reason i decided to change it but the filter wasnt that dirty and the smell still there. I read that the smell we are getting is from bacteria that is building up in the A/C. It also said that it is mainly a problem in cars that use the R-134 freeon. It also said that there are a few ways to correct this problem. Here is the link so you all can check it out

http://autorepair.about.com/cs/heatingac/a/aa071601a.htm

So I turned on my a/c the other day and it was makin a noise that sounds like a peice of paper flapping in the wind.... .... that sounded weird. It is coming from the passenger side. It was a deep flapping noise. like a deep "burrrr". Now that i read this thread and found out the filters are in that area. Ya think theres something stuck in the filter making this noise or ya think its an entirely diff problem?

If its bacteria in your evaporator box, take lysol, with your ac on, and spray in in your vents where the system pulls in air.(by the wiper blades) That will kill all the crap in the box.

I wish I had taken some pictures of car's I've done.

There were some where as I was pulling the filter out, pieces of nastiness were falling back into the airbox because the filters were already packed solid. The winner for grossest was my 240sx. I found three dead mice in my HVAC and ended up having to pull the entire interior and wipe down everything inside and out with bleach and lysol.

this should work better than lysol unless there are dead rodents in the hvac

they also make something called frigiclean that is more aggressive, but I've never tried it.

As far as air fresheners go, they make some that are designed to be attached to the filter in home furnace filters, I've been thinking of trying one of those when I do my cabin filter again.

Filters are filters in regards to cabin air filters. They mostly just block the large dirt/dust anyway. Autozone sells STP ones for like $10. OEM ones are about $20. It takes about 20 min to change them.