Today marks a sad day.
My 10+ year old True flow air filter has started to crumble. The two indentations above the ghost of the logo are from a light finger touch. The foam is shot. What do you guys use now that filter as well as these did? I have looked at the AFE but dry filters don't catch all the dust oiled foam filters do.

 

Hummm..... Dunno.....

I just use Genuine Toyota filters.

 

Do you still have to clean a fine later of dust out of the intake tube?

 

The PO installed a K&N CAIK that came with their oiled cone filter. I wash it and reoil it every other year (~50k miles) and can’t complain. I don’t eat MAF sensors, throw codes, or see contamination in the pipes.

 

When I bought my 4Runner in 2010 it kept throwing CEL's, so the seller knocked off a few hundred bucks. Turned out to be a fouled MAF from the filter oil. It was probably overoiled.

I used paper filters for years, then switched to an oiled filter again (TruFlow?). Which seemed to work pretty OK, no complaints. Until a dusty backcountry desert trip in Utah when the fine dust apparently overwhelmed the oil and *that* fouled the MAF. CEL's, reduced power, not great out in the middle of nowhere. Limped it back into town and got a paper filter.

Once the dust has dried out the filter oil, fine dust goes into the motor, and there's not any really good way to fix that out int he middle of nowhere. If your paper filter gets overwhelmed by dust, the flow is reduced, and you lose power, but all you need to do as a temporary fix is take it out and whack it gently against the bumper a few times until half the dust it's eaten falls back out, then put it back in. Good to go again.

That being said, I had a lightly dusted MAF and a CEL on this year's trip as well, using a paper filter. OEM Toyota.