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Originally Posted by ekpolk
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I just changed my cabin air filter today, and it was not difficult. I would not disconnect the airbag harness - doing so would increase the risk of a problem, and it is just not justified. Just follow TSB AC006-99 as specified in ekpolk's posting.
The following descriptions (which elaborate the TSB steps) may also help:
1. Remove the glove compartment, by the following steps:
1.a. Remove the under cover. Use fingers, no tools are required. Gentle downward pressure at the front of the panel after pressing the leftmost tab towards the front of the car will remove the under cover. Also, on my 2000 Avalon XLS, there was a round, flat item about 3/4 of an inch in diameter taped to the top of the under cover, and there was a pair of wires connected from the car to this round, flat item. This is not mentioned in the TSB. I disconnected the wires to this item at the white connector for this wire pair, and removed the under cover. The wires were reconnected on reassembly.
1.b. Remove the airbag harness cover (Do not disconnect the airbag harness). The airbag harness cover is a black piece of plastic about 2 inches by 3 inches and it snaps to the top of the glove box by means of tabs on the airbag harness cover. Insert a flat blade screwdriver under the edge of this piece of plastic and gently pry the harness cover loose. The harness cover will drop into the glove box with the harness for the airbag attached. The harness is covered with a protective flexible plastic cover, so there is no need for undue concern about stretching wires or shorting them out. Brute force will break anything of course, but gentle prying worked for me.
1.c. Route the airbag harness cover through the vehicle hole. In English, this means: hold the airbag harness cover which fell into the glove box in step 1.b. so that it can be pushed through the hole in the top of the glove box, and push the airbag harness cover through this hole. Then let the airbag harness cover rest on top of the glove box.
1.d. Remove the 4 screws and 1 bolt. All are Phillips head. The screws are black, while the bolt is a silver/copper color. Open the glove box to remove the 3 screws at the top of the glove box, and close the glove box to remove the screw at the lower left of the glove box. The bolt is on the lower right of the glove box. Be very careful when removing this screw to avoid dropping it into the trim. After the bolt was loose, I used a screwdriver with a screw clip on it to hold the bolt in place for final removal and for reinstallation. A magnetic screwdriver would work as well.
1.e. Remove the glove compartment and disconnect the trunk opener switch. Gently work the glove box loose by hand, until it can be removed from the car. The trunk opener switch has a connector on it which must be disconnect to remove the glove box. Needle nose pliers helped me press the connector so that it came apart with only gentle pressure.
2. Remove the filter assembly. Gentle pulling on the knobs caused the filter to slide out easily.
3. Replace filter. Discard original, install new. Note the direction of airflow is towards the bottom of the car, while the arrow (which says UP) on the filter case points upward which is opposite to the direction of airflow.
4. Reinstall filter assembly. Gently push filter assembly back in place, until a quiet snap is felt.
5. Reinstall glove compartment and all related components. Installation steps are the reverse of those in step 1.
If you are mechanically inclined and understand that mechanical items should not require much force in this case, this is not a difficult procedure. When you actually perform the procedure, you will see that there is no need for concern about an airbag popping out.
On the other hand, if you are not used to working carefully with your hands, you may be best advised to let the dealer change your cabin air filter.
