Tag: How to change 2020 Outback filter

How to Change Cabin Air Filter and Engine Air Filter for 2020 Subaru Outback

Here are pic­tures doc­u­ment­ing the change/replacement of the cab­in and engine air fil­ters of my 2020 Sub­aru Out­back Onyx XT.

Project dura­tion: 10 min­utes under good con­di­tions

Tools need­ed: Hands, maybe a flash­light.

Cab­in Air Fil­ter

Open your glove com­part­ment.

There’s a tab on the right hand side when you open it. Just tug on it high­er up and it comes right off.

On either side of the glove box, are hinges as shown in the upper pic­ture. Push hard on either side to pop them out. It might be hard to do if your car is new­er or when it’s cold. Mine qual­i­fied under both con­di­tions and I had a heck of a time.

Aaaand, it final­ly came out!

Here’s a close­up of one of those hinges. Sub­aru gave it extra felt. Kin­da nice.

And here you have the cab­in air fil­ter box.

I could­n’t fig­ure out how to remove this piece and man­aged to break off one of the clasps on the side of the cab­in air fil­ter box like an idiot. 🙁 All you have to do is squeeze those two things on the bot­tom at the same time and it comes right off.

Here’s the old one.

I don’t think the fil­ter has been changed since I first bought the car Nov of 2019, so it’s been over a year (it is mid-Feb 2021 right now). That’s a gen­uine Sub­aru cab­in air fil­ter.

This is the new fil­ter installed. **N.B. From var­i­ous online videos, I hear that Sub­aru’s air flow is from top to down, but Sub­aru is appar­ent­ly one of the few (if not the only) car man­u­fac­tur­ers for which the OEM cab­in air fil­ter arrow does­n’t cor­re­spond with air flow direc­tion. If you’re using after­mar­ket, then make sure you fol­low the air flow.**

OK, then you just put it back togeth­er. Cov­er on the fil­ter box, line up the bot­tom hinges of the glove box and sim­ply push up until it snaps in, then make sure you replace the lit­tle clasp on the right side and BOOM, you’re done!

Engine Air Fil­ter

Open the hood

On the left side of the engine bay, find this and unhook the met­al clasps.

If you wig­gle it apart, you’ll see the old engine air fil­ter.

Just pull it out.

I used a gen­uine Sub­aru engine air fil­ter. The new one is on the left and the old one on the right.

You just slide it in there, foam-side fac­ing the back of the car, close up the clasps, and you’re done!

Yay!