Does anyone have a CAF installed on their Escape? I read a thread that Ford does not install one and that it is available as a dealer $option$. I checked mine, and it did not have one.

I had one installed this week, the filter was $28.89, and $15.00 to install, at the dealer.

Ordered mine from DriveWire.com (part# R2060-138313), $20 including shipping. Installed it in about 5 minutes.

There are a number of options.

1. Motorcraft FP49. The dealer option. About $40
2. Purolator C25478. Purolator makes filters for Ford. Price unknown.
3. Wix 24816. Price about $16-20.
4. Bosch R2060-138313. Price about $15.

The install looks complicated but it's really a 10 minute job at most.

I paid about $7 at Kragen and installed it myself in about 15 minutes.

It really helped to keep the dust out of things when we were at Burning Man.

Are there instructions that come with the filter, or are there directions online somewhere? I'm thinking if I got one I'd wait 'til spring anyway, before pollen season. My Contour came with the filter, and it's a bit of a pain to replace it, though I did find directions at the contour.org website.

Fred

No instructions are provided (they want you to pay the dealer to do it) but I can give you a text description of the steps, and you can google and probably find a pictoral guide as well (Escape cabin filter or Escape pollen filter should work)

1. Get the wipers out of the way by turning off the key when the wipers are at mid-stroke.

2. The passenger side cowling cover is held in place by four screws along the bottom edge of the windscreen. The screws have plastic caps on them. To help prevent losing these caps, keep the hood down while you pry them off with a small flat screwdriver or the tip of a knife blade. You might want to put your hand over them as they can go flying...

3. Remove the four phillips head screws you just uncovered. Now open the hood.

4. There are a row of plastic "rivets" along the front edge of the cowling cover. You should be able to remove these by pressing up from underneath (push up the center pin first which will allow you to then press up the rest of the rivet).

5. Remove the passenger side cowling cover, you'll have to wiggle it a bit to get the outside corner past the hood.

6. Remove the dust cover/splash guard that's underneath the cowling cover. You can now see the filter box which is missing a filter. I usually spray a shot of Lysol down the opening when I'm installing a filter to kill anything that might be growing on the evaporator. Observe the airflow arrows and install the filter (air flows downwards). Make sure the rubber gasket on the filter seals against the filter box or the splash guard won't fit.

7. Reinstall the splash guard

8. Put the cowling cover back in place, press in the plastic rivets.

9. Reinstall the four phillips head screws and push the caps back over the screw heads.

10. Enjoy reduced dust in the cabin and less gunk buildup on your evaporator making mold/mildew growth less likely.

Cool, Steve... That sounds almost exactly like the process for the Contour! Must be a Ford thing. There was a caveat on the contour.org website about the caps not wanting to stay on after taking them off & putting them back on. And I like the idea about the Lysol.

Fred

Thanks for those directions. I used a Fram CA4303 from Walmart for about $5. It seems like one side of the filter box is about 1/4 of an inch bigger, so I constructed a nice shim out of the box to be sure the air is going to get filtered just a little bit more.

I noticed the cowling cover and the screw covers seem to be made from a very soft plastic, so if minor scratches are a concern to you, be sure to use a nylon prying tool or some other object.

One last thing, I noticed the filter Ford sells online doesn't seem like it would fit at all as it's twice as wide at one end compared to the other.

Found this .pdf file from WIX that gives in illustrated form on how the on installing the cabin air filter.

Look at Illustration 2 for Escape check out illustration #2.