MAF sensor

[jruberto]

I gotta say, I beat up my dealer pretty bad trying to get them to honor my ETM warranty on the eve of its expiration, they tried all day to get it to fail their testing and couldn't. I've been having many of the symptoms related to a failing ETM for a long time. (Terrible idle, stalling, unresponsive gas pedal, weird slowdown when letting off the gas pedal sometimes, P0121, P0171, a couple other throttle-related codes, cruise control disabled, turbo solenoid code)

The problem ultimately turned out to be the MAF. I've never had any MAF related codes, my MAF was only a couple years old, I took it out and cleaned it a few months ago; was feeling like I had ruled out a bad MAF as a possibility.

The dealer suggested a new MAF (they seemed to relate the P0171 long term fuel trim code to an internal fault in the MAF -- not sure how that conclusion was drawn, but I'm grateful). Declined their crazy expensive quote on doing the MAF, swapped out for a new MAF myself, disconnected the battery while I was doing it so I could start fresh. Now it's idling rock solid at 650RPM, cruise control is back, and the turbo is pushing me back in my seat again.

I'm not saying my ETM isn't going to fail, it just wasn't the problem this time around. If you are out of warranty, this might be a good thing to try first. Most shops keep a good MAF lying around for testing, try temporarily swapping in a known good MAF and your problems might just go away a WHOLE lot cheaper than replacing the throttle module.

My 200k/10 year warranty ends today. Not super excited about that, but c'est la vie.. If the thing goes I'll either get a new car or go with the Xemodex -- my local indie shop is a big advocate of using that instead of the stock part.