Should I be worried about this?

Here's what I found when I took out the cabin air filter to have a look at it:





Here's the pile of crap I shook out of the filter before putting it back:



I know the leaves and bugs are normal, but foam? Eek. Those foam bits weren't part of the air filter, were they? I've always just seen papery looking ones. Is something disintegrating in my car or did I just accidentally drive over a bunch of grey foam or something? Has anyone else found foam bits in theirs before? In other words, is this anything to worry about?

I'm going to replace it soon, so meh, but...is finding this kind of stuff in there normal?

 

simple you probably drove by somewhere were a piece of packaging material (foam) was dropped on the highway and shredded into millions of tiny pieces that your car happened to swoop up.

Nothing to worry about.

 

Those little oblong black specs look like mousey turds to me. I think a mouse was starting to build a nest in there and brought some of those foam pieces into the blower housing. I think they can get into the wiper mechanism compartment, which is where the blower intakes outside air from, from behind the wheel well liner. Have you noticed any bad smells in the car or engine compartment?

 

Heh, I was about to bump this thread because when the dealership pulled the filter during an oil change, their theory was "mouse!"

It looked like the under-dash foam to them. I haven't noticed any bad smells, so hopefully the mouse got sick from adding lightness to my dash and went somewhere else to die.

How do I make sure there's not still mice up in there? I'm not sure where they're even coming from because all the cats in my current neighborhood do a pretty good job of keeping mice out. I'm not fond of the idea of ripping the dash out, either, but the thought of mouse poo in my car is giving me the *******.

I had the car at Baylor, too, though, and the lack of new foam bits seems to suggest that the mouse isn't still there. I even had a freaking mouse in my dorm room at BU. The feral cats didn't seem to do their job in that neighborhood.

 

Came across this thread and thought I would share my mouse **** experience in the in-cabin filter as well.

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