As many know, the 5th gen has a "lifetime fuel filter". Some don't believe there's such a thing as a lifetime filter and have swapped theirs out. But the questions is this: Has swapping out the fuel filter produced a noticable improvement in gas milage? Is there some other benefit I'm overlooking?
If not, I'm having a hard time convincing myself it's worth the considerable work.

Feedback anyone?

 

beats me.. i dont even know why they change it in the first place..

 

I personally don't believe it's necessary. I drove my 95 Altima 120,000 miles without changing it and it made no difference and that was supposed to be changed IIRC. I think people who have noticed a difference in performance are doing that because they want to believe that it actually does something. I'm not saying it's a bad idea to change that or any other filter, but in my experience it never made any noticeable difference. The manual also says it's a 'no-maintenance' item, so fhugettaboutit!

 

Not an improvement in gas mileage, but I did experience a rather significant (as in, TOO significant to be chalked up to "butt dyno" subjective error) boost in performance. I could almost never chirp my tires in 1st gear before changing the fuel filter... afterwards I could.

Granted, beforehand I thought my car drove like a bit of a dog... the fuel filter change really lit it up.

Although my butt-dyno's failed me before (e.g. with the VIAS issue), I'm still skeptical that my perceived differences in performance were all in my head.

And for the record, I read somewhere in this forum that Nissan has amended the maintenance schedule to include a fuel filter change around ~105K miles I think. Not sure which specific years this applies to.