Driving home from the funeral home (mother-in-law) Tuesday night and my check engine light came on, gauges were all normal and it still ran great so I continued home. Checked everything under the hood in the am, added some Sea Foam (never tried it in the diesel, but the label said OK so figured it wouldn't hurt), drove 200 mile round trip to the funeral, light still on. My neighbor brought home a handheld code scanner from the shop but it wouldn't even acknowldge that it was hooked to the truck. While "looking around" he asked about the air cleaner, 40,000 miles and I never opened it, has one of those "filter minder" things on the intake and it hasn't moved so .... why bother? We took out the filter and found it pretty dirty, ordered up a new one and cleaned out the airbox while waiting for delivery. I figured "What the heck?, might as well try it, neighbor said that even if it was the problem it would probably take a few run cycles to clear. Well, started it up and the light went out right off, put in the new filter and it has stayed off. Anyone have that "filter minder" even move? Doesn't take much vacuum for it to go (and stay) red but it never moved while attached to the intake but there was apparently enough restriction to trigger the check engine light (without being under much of any load besides). By the way, the "WIX" replacement filter has the exact same mfg label on it as the original "Delco".

Bruce

Looks as though I am the only one dumb enough to expect the "Filter Minder" to actually work! Oh well, the only issue I've had so far other than some gelled fuel one -13 morning, I am still a happy camper with this truck.

Bruce

I posted your info on another site and got some replies. Not sure if it helps, but listed them below.
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Probably when the filter was dirty it changed the balance ratio of air to the MAF sensor. These engines need lots of air.

This would be a good time to clean the MAF sensor.
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Don't think Ive heard of a air filter setting a CEL. If he is seeing less smoke and/or his mileage goes up after changing it out that may have been the cause of the CEL. I have over 47K on my filter and a few have over 50K these new Donaldson filter hold a lot of dirt.
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Just changed mine at 25k, Old didn't look dirty like flat filters do. I also did the PPE airbox mod. I haven't noticed any difference in power,turbo noise or milage.
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A few months ago I noticed my MPG was dropping. Change oil/fuel filters regularly, hadn't changed the air filter because it looked ok and the indicator said it was still good. Had about 27-28K on it so I decided to change it anyway. Glad I did as my MPG went back up. I cut open the old air filter and a bunch of junk fell out out of it. It was filthy on the inside but looked good on the front/rear. I was planning on posting some pics of it but haven't gotten around to it yet.

I have a filter minder on my '08 F-250. I had Check engine light issues with aftermarket intakes and filter, put stock back in and no issues. I had since replaced the stock filter with a drop in Airaid Filter. No issues at all.

Thanks for the replies. I wasn't noticing any smoke or milage drop with the old filter, have to try a road trip to see if anything was gained with the fresh one. Those filters DO hold a lot of dirt, doesn't breath through the outside much so they don't look bad but inside all those "tunnels" is a different story. The truck has only been about 500 miles since the new filter but 300 was with an enclosed trailer and a couple bikes, another 80 with the boat. In both cases milage was right where previous averages predicted (15 w/ bikes, 16.5 w/ boat) and the CEL has yet to make a return appearance. We did a pretty thorough job of cleaning out the air box but didn't look at the MAF, have to put that on the "to do" list. Thanks again.


Bruce