One Cause for Q45 Asthma

[TellarHK]

So my otherwise-excellent Q45, now with New Rear Shock Goodness(tm) has always felt a little more sluggish than I recalled it being when I first rode in it ten years ago. I expect a 15 year old car to be a little long in the tooth and not up to the same performance by any means, but things felt a little... asthmatic.

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine was checking out the car for fun and found some sunflower seeds in the bottom of the air filter. Amazingly, he found about two to three cups worth of them at the bottom of the filter chamber. Today, he decided he'd take a look at the rest of the intake.



All that came out of the air intake today, after the first few cups had been removed by hand a few weeks ago. It might be psychological, but the car sure feels a bit snappier going up the mountains to Lake Tahoe now!

My mom reports that it's likely while the car was stored for the winter of 2007-2008, one of the neighborhood squirrels decided to use it for a hoard location.

[SanCarlosQ45]

Reminds me of my dads cabinetry shop when we cleaned it out. They had a parrot there, thus of course seed which attracted rats. Our forklift was full of that and wiring was chewn through as well.

I would check under the plenum for damage as that could be a nest as well.

[maxnix]

Bad news if these got past the filter!

Why it is standard practice to replace all fluids and filters unless one knows (documented) otherwise.

Check your resonators. They might be full of seeds too.

[TellarHK]

Fortunately, everything else checked out just fine. Aside from the seeds themselves, the filter and everything under the plenum are in great shape. Nothing had gotten past the filter, as the MAF and resonators were both clear. We pulled the whole filter chamber off the car, and stuck a vacuum with an extension tube down into the intake at both ends in order to make sure we got it all.

[shanec86]

well now you have a q45 that runs better AND you can grow some pretty flowers

[unknown007]

Reminds me of my GF's, cousin's, dad's car which had sun flower seeds all underneath the center console.I need to take my bumper off to see inside my intake.I dropped a 10mm socket lol dont ask how but I dunno if it really fell inside. The car still runs good except my idle.