How the H does one get the top off the air filter box?
I can with some difficulty access 3 of the clips but there is a 4th clip that is beneath the attached heat shield. The shield is attached by 4 screws, the lower of which are extremely hard to access with a philips screwdriver.

Am I missing some esoteric German engineering reason that a one minute job should take an hour and entail scuffed and burned knuckles?

 

Hey, the good news is it only takes a half an hour the second time. You don't actually have to take the whole top half off to get the filter out. Just pop the top three clips and pry it open enogh to get the filter out. You don't need to remove the heat shield to get the filter out. Now, as for the scuffed knuckles, I still get that after four years!

 

Thanks for the helpful suggestion. Nothing like brute force to overcome design flaws.

 

Yeah, back when I changed mine i cut my finger on the air box, yeah, try and explain that. Brute force is all it takes.

 

The next time I change the air filter, I'm going to tape my right wrist. I also only remove 3 clips.

 

Figured I'd revive this OLD thread after I just tried to change my air filter.

I managed to get all 4 clips off, put the new filter in, and barely got 3 clips on and can't get to that last one [:@] I did manage to slice my thumb open on the heat shield though, that was fun [&:]