I looked on the forum before I asked this as well as the "1000 questions already answered question" site and did not find anything about this. So it is safe for me to ask this without sounding like a complete idiot. I currently have some cheap ebay $20 air intake in my eclipse GS 99. It comes with an aluminum tube and a cone filter that looks promising. It's been 2 years now. And I was looking at the K&N air intake. Why does it cost so much from K&N? I obviously know it's better quality, but is it worth the money? Or is the cheap ebay filter a good substitution?

 

Id say a cheap ebay pipe is fine, however i really feel that a good filter is worth it. Because alot of those cheap filter will deteriorate and fall apart. Also a good K&N filter is a lifetime guarentee. You can just wash it in the sink when it gets dirty and it will be fine. However an ebay one you will have to continually buy a new one...leaving the reason why they are cheap, because you constantly need to buy new ones

 

Thanks again Engineer. You're so helpful. The local pepboys have the K&N filter for $20. I'm not sure if I'm looking at the right price, but that looks kinda cheap. Considering with the pipe it's $200. And I looked at the filter, it is genuine K&N.