Snow plugged cabin air filter

[Reidles]

interesting, so what is different, when it melts it travels in a different way?

I suspect it is snow that's suspended in air and then gets sucked into the filter, whereas water would pool and flow away? No idea at this point. I'll update you on what they find today.

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[HeyBales]

Should be able to find pictures of the outside vent cover under the cowling.
Not huge, it would be easy for swirling snow to end up getting sucked down.

So I'm wondering if you have something different nearby or under the cowling causing more swirling, allowing the effect to be worse.

Because plenty of drivers in snow on here - I'd think such an extreme effect seen on the HVAC would have led to more discoveries like this.
Like you said - the auto-HVAC responses to moisture & cold is outside air - many should be getting this.

It could be something as simple as the high voltage cable not sitting where it's supposed to, causing/allowing wind in the wrong place.
Or maybe something needs to be under the cowling in the wrong place to cause it.
I don't recall those pictures real well - how much is in that space that could be misplaced.
But for airflow - doesn't take much to shift it.

Worst comes to worst - it seemed like there was space under that little cover to drop down some better sides down to block the vent better. May requires a tech designed solution.

 

[Reidles]

Service Manager at the Dealer (Whitehorse Motors) went the extra mile on this. Everything is as it should be, but "the gap around that baffle is massive, we're going to see lots more of these" Effectively it's a design flaw - I suspect the reason more folks aren't seeing this is because we've seen a lot of snow at -20/-30 temperatures up here, which means very small, mobile snowflakes, which basically get sucked into the filter. Add in short trips (filter never gets warm enough to melt the snow) and bingo - cabin air filter full of snow.

The fix: Dealer has ordered https://frogzskin.com/ to act as a prefilter - this is what we do on snowmobiles to stop snow/water getting sucked into the engine air intake. None in town at the moment so it'll be a next week fix. The other aspect he did was raise an engineering case with Ford.

Hopefully if anyone else suffers the same nuisance, this helps you out. Once the cover is installed, and we get a fresh dump of snow, I'll update. I will also check it once we're in summer to make sure its not getting jammed with dust and impacting airflow.

As with a lot of the little issues with this truck, it seems like you need a good dose of persistence and a decent dealer!

 

[Glen Baker LLC]

Service Manager at the Dealer (Whitehorse Motors) went the extra mile on this. Everything is as it should be, but "the gap around that baffle is massive, we're going to see lots more of these" Effectively it's a design flaw - I suspect the reason more folks aren't seeing this is because we've seen a lot of snow at -20/-30 temperatures up here, which means very small, mobile snowflakes, which basically get sucked into the filter. Add in short trips (filter never gets warm enough to melt the snow) and bingo - cabin air filter full of snow.

The fix: Dealer has ordered https://frogzskin.com/ to act as a prefilter - this is what we do on snowmobiles to stop snow/water getting sucked into the engine air intake. None in town at the moment so it'll be a next week fix. The other aspect he did was raise an engineering case with Ford.

Hopefully if anyone else suffers the same nuisance, this helps you out. Once the cover is installed, and we get a fresh dump of snow, I'll update. I will also check it once we're in summer to make sure its not getting jammed with dust and impacting airflow.

As with a lot of the little issues with this truck, it seems like you need a good dose of persistence and a decent dealer!

Thank you for the update
Very understandable, considering the super low temperatures creating very fine powder like snow add to that blowing wind.

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