Here's the rundown: 2008 Mazda 3s manual hatchback:
It started with stumbling/stuttering issues at around 2000-2500rpm while cruising, light throttle, maintaining speed with traffic flow. No codes thrown. Looking around the forums, it seemed like cleaning the MAF sensor was the consensus, so I tried that. Cleaned it with MAF Sensor Cleaner, let it dry, reinstalled it, and OH-MY-GOD-IT'S-SO-MUCH-WORSE. The mild stutter or stumble became a full-on bog, cough, die-at-idle, hell-to-keep-running kind of issue, and immediately threw the P0102 low voltage code.
I replaced the MAF sensor with an aftermarket parts store unit, but that didn't do the trick. My wife was out of town at the time, so using her car as my baseline and guinea pig wasn't an option.
Fast forward to this morning, when I finally had access to both cars and time to play. I pulled the original OEM sensor from my wife's car, plugged my original unit into hers, and drove it for about 30 minutes. No issues at all. No stumbling, no codes, no problems. That's good. That indicates that the original unit wasn't faulty in the first place.
Now the acid test: I put her known-good OEM unit into my problem-prone car, and went out to drive the same loop. I had to abort pretty quickly and head back to the house, because the stuttering and bogging came on just as soon as the engine warmed up, and the car died several times when I had to stop for red lights.
The P0102 code came back, of course, just as it has done every time since I cleaned the original sensor last weekend.
No other codes have popped up.
This leads me to believe that I have a faulty wire in the MAF sensor's harness. Has anyone else had similar experiences and found the solution to be something else, something I haven't considered?
I'm not really in a position right now to just throw money and new parts at the car, and I'm pretty terrible at troubleshooting electrical stuff (it either works, or it doesn't, in my book.
), and if I ever owned a voltmeter, I have no idea where it might be now, or how to properly use it if I could find it. It doesn't help that I really don't have a place where I can properly work on the car for any kind of extended time frame.
Just trying to get ideas and verify if I'm on the right track or not before I try to get it to a shop and let them have a go.
Thanks in advance for any advice and help.
It started with stumbling/stuttering issues at around 2000-2500rpm while cruising, light throttle, maintaining speed with traffic flow. No codes thrown. Looking around the forums, it seemed like cleaning the MAF sensor was the consensus, so I tried that. Cleaned it with MAF Sensor Cleaner, let it dry, reinstalled it, and OH-MY-GOD-IT'S-SO-MUCH-WORSE. The mild stutter or stumble became a full-on bog, cough, die-at-idle, hell-to-keep-running kind of issue, and immediately threw the P0102 low voltage code.
I replaced the MAF sensor with an aftermarket parts store unit, but that didn't do the trick. My wife was out of town at the time, so using her car as my baseline and guinea pig wasn't an option.
Fast forward to this morning, when I finally had access to both cars and time to play. I pulled the original OEM sensor from my wife's car, plugged my original unit into hers, and drove it for about 30 minutes. No issues at all. No stumbling, no codes, no problems. That's good. That indicates that the original unit wasn't faulty in the first place.
Now the acid test: I put her known-good OEM unit into my problem-prone car, and went out to drive the same loop. I had to abort pretty quickly and head back to the house, because the stuttering and bogging came on just as soon as the engine warmed up, and the car died several times when I had to stop for red lights.
The P0102 code came back, of course, just as it has done every time since I cleaned the original sensor last weekend.
No other codes have popped up.
This leads me to believe that I have a faulty wire in the MAF sensor's harness. Has anyone else had similar experiences and found the solution to be something else, something I haven't considered?
I'm not really in a position right now to just throw money and new parts at the car, and I'm pretty terrible at troubleshooting electrical stuff (it either works, or it doesn't, in my book.
), and if I ever owned a voltmeter, I have no idea where it might be now, or how to properly use it if I could find it. It doesn't help that I really don't have a place where I can properly work on the car for any kind of extended time frame.Just trying to get ideas and verify if I'm on the right track or not before I try to get it to a shop and let them have a go.
Thanks in advance for any advice and help.
