Maf Sensor Problem Or... ?

[ruddy]

A couple of days ago I was carrying enough of a load for my "Service engine soon" light to come on while I was accelerating up a slight hill. (It's been doing that under load lately.) Fortunately I was near an Autozone store so I could get a reading. The code was "MAF" which is for the $133 air flow sensor. The parts guy, however, thinks it's more likely caused by the O2 sensors between the manifolds and the cat. He said they would cause the intermittent service light indications, while a MAF sensor failure would trigger the light continuously. He suggested replacing the two $55 O2 sensors. He also said that 120K miles is a long lifetime for these sensors and they're due to be replaced anyway.

 

The light was on the next morning when I started the truck, but it went out before I cleared the driveway.

 

My MIL came on again yesterday as I was driving to work, so I thought I'd stop at a Schuck's store on my way home. Unfortunately, the light went out on the way to the store. I talked to a parts counter employee, and he suggested trying to clean the MAF sensor. He also did not agree with what the Autozone guy told me.

 

After doing some Google research about cleaning these things, I get the impression that using K&N air filters is not a good idea because some of the filter oil gets on the sensor wires. I do have one, and it was recently cleaned and re-oiled. I'm thinking that replacing it with a factory type filter and cleaning the sensor would be the way to go. I am also getting an OBD II code reader, so I can monitor what's going on.

 

Any other suggestions?

[ruddy]

I obviously didn't get any response here, but I thought somebody may benefit from my experience. I ran across this post to another forum, and it led me to the solution: http://www.obd-codes.com/forums/608-obd-co...-silverado.html

 

I did what was suggested, and it solved my problem. The truck runs better and has noticeably more pep off the line.

[Import Hater]

After doing some Google research about cleaning these things, I get the impression that using K&N air filters is not a good idea because some of the filter oil gets on the sensor wires. I do have one, and it was recently cleaned and re-oiled. I'm thinking that replacing it with a factory type filter and cleaning the sensor would be the way to go.

 

We have found the oil from aftermarket filters does lead to more MAF failures. YAnd sometimes cleaning the sensor doesn't work.

 

And never trust what an Autozone parts guy when it comes to diagnosing a drivability problem.

[atboley]

o2 sensor causing a maf code???? what??? he's smokin somthin lol... k&n filters always do that when ppl clean them and put to much oil on, most of the timne cleaing it works but not always...