MAF issue or something else?

**poppydoodlesdad** · 10-09-2015,05:31 PM

Having had a look through the forum and elsewhere, I am pretty sure I know the answer to this but wanted to get others opinions before making a final decision.

I’ve got 2001 Golf 1.6 which I bought about a year ago. When idling it used to “hunt” sometimes revving between about 800 – 1100 rpm, sometimes running constantly at about 1100 but often settling to about 750rpm, what I would consider “normal”. Other than that it drove OK.

Having done a bit of research on this and other forums I concluded that it was probably the MAF sensor. So, contrary to some advice, I took the sensor out and cleaned it with electrical contact cleaner. This did appear to make a difference. It no longer “hunted” for the idle but was consistently idling at a normal rate. I did feel there was a slight decrease in power but to be honest I think I might have been imagining that.

Anyway, over the summer while I was on holiday the car was left undriven for a week or so, at time when it rained a lot, which might be purely coincidental but I thought it worth mentioning. Following this period the car has been running quite roughly and under acceleration will “hesitate” before picking up. Once you get out of second gear at a more-or-less constant speed it tends to smooth out (though it does seem to be getting worse).

The other day I disconnected the lead to the MAF sensor (though I didn’t take the sensor itself out) and cleaned these as I thought maybe the wet weather might have got in there; this did seem to make a small difference.

I also ran the car with the MAF disconnected as I was given to understand that this would put the engine in to a kind of basic setting mode which should actually run better if the MAF was defective. I have to say it made no difference, which made me think maybe it isn’t the MAF?

I am thinking of having the MAF out again, giving it another “clean” to see if it makes any difference as a way of maybe “confirming” this is the problem. If there is a difference I’ll get a new sensor.

Before I do that though I just wanted other people’s take on the situation?

Many thanks

**kite** · 10-09-2015,05:47 PM

Might be worth cleaning the throttle body then having it reset with vagcom.
A search on here should throw up instructions.

**Rob69** · 10-09-2015,07:16 PM

get it scanned before chucking money and parts at it.

**doctordubs** · 10-09-2015,08:51 PM

Nope. The symptoms u describe point at a broken throttle body stepper motor. Common problem on these cars.

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**poppydoodlesdad** · 28-09-2015,10:28 AM

BY way of a follow up, I clean out the throttle body, that which I could get at without fully removing it and it did make some difference. However, on the back of another issue (lost drive in 5th, gear box kaput?) I had the AA do a diagnostic which threw up the following codes:

0215 - Idle control component on minimum stop
029C - Battery voltage terminal 30 OPM Circuit
463A - Engine Control Unit Disabled

I'm not sure if these are the proper VAG codes (I'm in the middle of looking them up) but if anyone has any idea what these mean / imply I'd be happy to hear.

Many thanks in advance and thanks for the replies so far.

**doctordubs** · 29-09-2015,11:10 AM

First code. Throttle body broken.
Second code. Battery was removed.
Third code correlates with second.
Is ur car manuel or automatic?

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