Cabin filter Wix or OEM Volkswagen

My 2017 Classic Edition has 24,500km just an oil change and Cabin filter.

At 23k miles I figured a cheap fix would be the cabin filter. Swapped in a Wix WP10159 charcoal filter and the smell is gone.

I use a charcoal Wix filter. It works really nice, even for filtering out smells a bit. And I drive a lot on dirt roads and it helps clean that up too.

As for the cabin air filter. I usually go with WIX.

Approaching 7k miles on 2018 GSW S 4motion 6mt, loving the car. -Warranty work to clean musty smell out of HVAC system, and replace cabin filter. This was performed free during first oil change. Dealership was excellent throughout the process and told me to not run recirc before shutting the car off.

I went with Wix. Works well.

I can't verify but it does seem like the OEM cabin filter in the Atlas is not charcoal activated, as I'm noticing all kinds of odors (including washer fluid) that I never got while driving my '08 Jetta with an activated charcoal filter.

My AC smells like wet dog for the first 30 seconds I run it. Wonder if changing the cabin filter would help.

One out of two times they gave me the wrong engine filter, even though they searched by VIN number. The second, and last time, I purchased from them, they sold me an aftermarket cabin filter for the same price as OEM.

I have changed cabin filters multiple times, and cleaned the evaporator with foam. I first used Klima cleaner, then I tried DWD2. I can not get this problem to go away.