Narrow Carshalton streets, slow traffic and misty windscreens
Around The Wrythe and the older parts of Carshalton, the Victorian and Edwardian streets are narrow, with parked cars on both sides and traffic filing through one at a time. Wrythe Lane is busy all day with visitors, ambulances and buses heading to St Helier Hospital. Journeys here are slow, often short and often in damp weather, which is exactly when you need the heater and fan working well to keep the windscreen clear.
A blocked cabin filter strangles that airflow. The fan sounds busy, but little air reaches the screen, and it takes far longer to demist on a cold, wet morning. Because most Carshalton cars are parked on the street overnight, they also collect leaves and dirt on the scuttle panel below the windscreen, especially near the green spaces around the ponds, Grove Park and Little Holland House. Some of that ends up in the filter housing.
We change the filter and deal with the cause as well as the symptom. That means clearing leaves out of the housing, checking the scuttle drains we can reach and looking at the old filter for damp or mould. A wet filter points to a blocked drain or seal problem, which we'll show you rather than ignore. If anyone in the car has hay fever, a fresh filter at the start of spring makes a noticeable difference, and a carbon filter adds protection against traffic smells on the A232.
From The Wrythe, Wrythe Green Road leads onto Nightingale Road and Hackbridge Road, and London Road brings you to Soho Mills near Hackbridge station, about 5 minutes. Most cabin filters take 15 to 30 minutes and you can wait. Some cars hide the filter under the scuttle panel and take up to an hour, and we'll tell you which yours is when you book. We quote in writing before starting, and the work is covered by a 3-month workmanship warranty.