Crawling the A23 from Streatham Hill to the Common
From Streatham Hill station down to Streatham Common, the A23 is a long, slow run of buses, crossings and a 20mph limit. While the Streatham Wells low traffic trial was in place, queues on the high road got even worse. Whatever the scheme of the day, local cars spend a lot of time crawling, and the air at bumper height is full of exhaust particles and road dust. The filter keeps that out of the engine, but the more it holds, the harder the engine has to work to breathe.
Streatham's car mix is broad: small city cars in the flat-heavy streets near the high road, family SUVs, and a fair number of premium models around Streatham Hill and the Common. Many of these run small turbocharged engines, which are sensitive to dust getting past the filter. Private-hire and delivery drivers on the A23 put on miles quickly, so their filters fall due well before an ordinary commuter's. An electric car, by contrast, has no engine air filter at all, only a cabin filter.
With the ULEZ covering Streatham, older non-compliant cars have largely gone, and the cars that replaced them are worth maintaining properly. We fit the correct OE-equivalent filter, clean out the airbox and check that the housing seals, the clips hold and the intake hose after the filter isn't split. Cars parked along the edge of Tooting Bec Common can pick up leaves in the air intake in autumn, and we clear those out too.
It's around 20 minutes to us: Mitcham Lane and Streatham Road to the Figges Marsh junction, round Mitcham to the Cricket Green, then Carshalton Road south into Hackbridge. As that's a longer trip for a short job, most Streatham customers book the filter with a service or MOT, or ask us to collect the car. You'll get a written quote first, and a 3-month workmanship warranty covers our work.