Air filter for 2012 Sky Active
 

I have a 2012 Mazda 3 i Touring Skyactiv and I need to replace the air filter. I bought a Fram CA9898 but it did not fit. It had squared corners where mine are a little more rounded.

I found on another website that the following filters may be the correct:

Purolator A44688,
Wix 42612,
Beck Arnley 042-1700,
Mann MA 1113,
Mahle LX 1688,
ACDelco A3121C,
and Hastings # AF1256

I did not see these brands at the local AutoZone. Is one of these the correct model? Who sells the brands?

It is easy to change out, hate to pay a dealer to do it just because I can't find a replacement...

- Jeff

This is the one to put in. Never replace it, clean it, outflows all others:

https://www.mazdaforum.com/forum/int...-cx-5-a-31478/

You can check rock auto too. rockauto.com they got a lot of good deals on filters. Only thing is you will have to ship and wait for it to get there. I would get a K&N as well. That is what I am running, you just clean it every year and you are good for 1 million miles what they guarantee. Plus a little better gas mileage.

I work at an auto parts place myself and I looked up your car. The Wix number you found is for a 2012 mazda 3, but not the skyactiv. The wix number you're looking for is 49247 with the rounded edges. It's a little late but hopefully it'll help somebody later on. :)

Thanks for the reply. I did buy the K&N filter online and it did fit.

I did not notice a boost in gas mileage or power but I am just driving back and forth to work. The car gets good gas mileage though... ~37mpg a tank on mostly backroads which was what I was getting before the air filter.

NICE!
K&N is a premium filter.

Skyactive is Mazda's moniker for optimizing a whole bunch of aspects that affect fuel consumption. One of these aspects is filter flow rate. My guess is that the Skyactive filter has a better than common flow rate, one that is about equal to the K&N's filter. Therefore you don't see a gain.

If my assumption is right then Skyactive owners need to be cautious that they don't get a filter with lower flow rate.

A friend of mine has a Moto Morini motorcycle. After changing the air filter he had trouble with the way the engine ran. Eventually, he exchanged the jets in the carburetors to smaller ones: the new filter was too restrictive.
In fuel injected engines the computer will reduce the amount of fuel injected to achieve the same effect.

JAC
I have the same car with the same problem. What kind of K&N air filter did you get.
Thank you

Did you not read my post. post #2?
There is a link to the proper K&N one.

This is the one I got and it fit:

K&N 33-2480 High Performance Replacement Air Filter from Amazon.com