mweiland

what could cause and maf (2005 v6) to fail suddenly, after a few hours of driving, after changing an air filter?

no problems at all in 6 years of owning the car before it failed. no real warning either. just about 30 sec of stuttering then stalling completely.

the car would start but immediately die after the stall. i could keep it running as long as i held the throttle at about half or better. the second i let off the gas, it died again.

i popped the hood, tapped on the sensor a few times and it started right up and idled smooth. i've put about 500 mi on it since and no problems at all. other than lean codes, there's nothing to show anything happened at all.

any ideas?

jwog666

a piece of dirt got on to the sensor while you were changing the filter. this caused the sensor to read incorrectly. when you tapped on the sensor the dirt fell off and presto, runs properly again. had it happed to me once.
clear your codes and see if they come back, either way i would clean the sensor carefully.

Nuke

Or there's a dirty/loose contact at the electrical connector at the MAF housing. Unplug the connector and give both ends a shot of contact cleaner then immediately reconnect and disconnect a few times. If your idle smoothed out after you tapped it, the MAF is probably ok. They don't usually fail intermittently.

Where in SE PA are you? I lived in York County from '90 to '07.