Carlo_Carrera

I looked in my 2001 TT maintenance manual for the mileage for replacement and couldn't find it. Searched here and saw 60k. That sounds like a long time to me.

What do you all do?

Macster

No law says you have to drive 60K miles before you replace the filter. You can replace it or have it replaced at any time.

I took my 03 Turbo in a while back for some work and while the car in the service department I asked the fuel filter changed. This was 35K miles IIRC.

Generally, I'll have 'little things' like the fuel filter done at the same time bigger thngs are done, even if the little things are not necessarily due based on miles or even time.

Car has now just over 55K miles so at 60K miles (probably) I'll have the fuel filter replaced again.

But you can wait until 60K miles. I saw my Boxster's fuel pump strainer (no fuel filter!) after over 200K miles of service (and after filtering/pumping over 9000 gallons of gasoline) and there wasn't that much trash. Tech said bottom of tank free of any debris or water, etc. Based on this I'd say you could wait until 60K miles with no fears. Or have the filter changed early. The job is not a wallet buster.

Sincerely,

Macster.

porka

well get this! i just did the 60k service at 46k!

i see it as love - just like oil changes! our cars just like new filters and oil!

fyi - when you fuel filter comes out quite a bit of fuel it spilt! my car smelt like a truck stop for a day or two!

mike

Kevinmacd

Fuel filter in these cars is pretty large compared to others. So the overall filtering capacity lends itself to longer life. One would think the harder you drive or if you track could have a bearing on replacement interval.

BostonDuce

"Official" interval is 48K miles.

BD

Macster

There may be some validity to what you say.

In a return fuel system the fuel pump runs constantly with the excess gasoline being returned to the tank and over time the fuel filter filters every bit of gas over and over again, and extracts any trash that came in with the fuel.

(As an aside: I point out my Boxster had no servicable fuel filter. The bottom of the fuel pump housing is a very fine plastic mesh that acted as a filter. After 200K (or more) miles this mesh had collected some trash but not much. Now this particular year of Boxster Porsche changed to a returnless (on demand) fuel system, so the pump only ran when necessary. No excess fuel was being re-routed/returned to the tank. (Among other benefits this returnless system avoids heating up the fuel in the tank and creating a vapor emissions problem.) Had not the pump failed I did not see any signs the amount of trash collected by the mesh could have reached a point that it would have interfered with the proper flow of fuel even in 400K miles. I had my doubts about this but it appears the fuel filters at gas station dispensing pumps are pretty good.)

Anyhow, a car that is subjected to harder than normal driving, track driving, will have the fuel stirred up and even the larger particles of trash that would otherwise remain on the fuel tank bottom could get stirred up enough to get carried along with the fuel flow and thus to the filter. The filtering of the gasoline is even more thorough that it would be otherwise.

The 60K mile or 48K mile or whatever number it is though should have sufficient margin. I mean I doubt Porsche spec'd the number it did with the idea that at the number + 1 mile the filter would be overloaded and clogged with trash.

I dare say most of us could run with no filter change over the life of the car -- given so many drive their cars so little -- without any problems, but it doesn't hurt to follow the mileage guidelines just to be safe.

Sincerely,

Macster.

Kevinmacd

Mac, I agree it seems you agree, but keep in mind Porsche is not the only vehicle that constantly filters as you stated due to return etc. My only point is if you compare like systems, the Porsche filter has a much larger filtration area than those with like systems. Some of those cars state 100K miles. Not that I agree or disagree with the 100K miles. Just wanted to make light that Porsche seems to have taken into account a lot of the variables and has delivered by using an above average filter size. Just my
2 cents! :-)