I have he compartment door open behind the glove compartment but the filter doesn't seem to be removable. The filter is close to the firewall and there is a space of about the dimension empty between the filter and the wall directly behind the glove box. How hard should it be to slide the filter down? Could someone have jammed it in or is there a indent or something holding it in place?

Bob

 

OK I discovered I was pulling on a "cross member", not the filter. Pulled the filter and it was clean. This car supposedly had a Volvo 105,000 service about 1500 miles ago, so I'm guessing Volvo changed all the filters at that time. One question however. I found a XC90 U-tube of how to replace the filter and the author says to put it the front slot. Volvo appears to have put it in the rear slot. Any thoughts on that?

Bob

 

There are two different filters. Cars with the air quality system use a bigger filter. You'll see the two slots are different sizes.

 

Looks to me as if this car has the air quality system since the manual recirculation button shows a man and auto option. Closed it all back up so next time I'm in there I'll get the air quality filter and use that. The existing filter was very clean and looked like it had charcoal embedded. I believe the thicker slot is the one closest to the glove compartment. Slowly learning my way around this car, so far I love it as a daily driver.
Bob