Firstly, my appologies if this is an already done topic. i bought a golf a week ago and straight away noticed the engine seemed to lack power and miss fired excessively.

my first thoughts were the airflow sensor (or what i believe to be called a MAF on a vw).

i disconnected the cable from the MAF and went for a drive around, the car seems fine, not particularly fast, but fine. the revs increase nice and smoothly now and the economy is in the high 50s.

does anyone know if i have "fixed" the problem? or am i causing damage to the car by running with the MAF disconnected.

one further point to note is that i have been informed that the car was fitted with some kind of chip by the previous owner. the chip is supposed to improve fuel consumption and not to make it faster (or so i have been told) could it be the case that since fitting the chip, the MAF connector was supposed to be removed? (ie, so the new chip can tell the ecu whats going on instead of receiving info from the MAF)

thanks in advance, dan.