I’ve been driving the same car for 3 years, and when I first got the car, I leased it for two years.
During this time, I had it inspected as needed and I took great care of it.
When I decided to purchase the car though, I was even more diligent about taking care of it because it was now completely in my ownership. I took it to the shop before the lights ever came on and I did my best to protect it from any unwanted situations. I thought I would always be ahead of my car repair, but I was wrong, a few weeks ago, I started noticing a foul smell whenever I got into the car. I thought it was body odor at first, after that I swiftly realized that it was the interior of the car. I looked under all the seats and inspected all the cracks, but I couldn’t find the source of the smell. I hardly kept anything in the car anyway, so I wasn’t wasn’t something I was responsible for. I took it to the shop and mentioned the smell and they decided to look around. They came back a few hours later and told me that the air filter was in bad shape. They even showed me the air filter and I could see for myself that it was covered with dust and debris. The dust was a deep black color and it was hanging off the filter in chunks. The mechanic told me that it needed to be replaced because I was breathing this in! With a new air filter, it took a day or so for the air to clear up, but it finally did and I was grateful.