[reflex]

Greetings!

I have a 2016 Outback that recently went outside of the covered services interval from the dealer. So after receiving a quote from said dealer, $535.00 which i declined, and loaded up my amazon cart with a air filter and the other necessary items scheduled at the service interval and snickered to myself at the price difference between the measly cost and the quote from the dealer. Now i should also say that I've been wrenching on cars since my teens and have a pretty good working knowledge, couple that with the internet, I believe that most regular maintenance can be handled at home. So when i couldn't figure out what this thing was behind my air filter, I'm left perplexed and turn it over to you good humans.

What the **** is this thing? It seems to be glued or attached in some way to the rear portion of the air-box, made of cloth or some synthetic cloth and looks dirty. When i tried to remove it i cracked the trim on one side, which leads me to believe that it should be there. Ive included pictures below, Thanks in advance!

 

[AWDFTW]

Part of emissions system.

 

[traildogck]

No doubt emission and drive-ability driven. It's a hydro barrier.

So No H2O or snowflakes hit the MAF during extreme weather. The airboxes are NOT the best sealed units prior to the MAF. And the CIA OEM snorkel is very efficient moving air. If the air has water in it, you want that fitered out.

It should stay in place. Subi would call it lifetime (100K miles) I expect. But that would mean changing out that side of the airbox.

 

[reflex]

Cool, thanks for the info gents!

I'll keep this is mind when im getting up around 100k, looks like the parts can be had pretty cheap.

Thanks again!