CEL success story!
 

So, after owning the car for seven years, I had my first CEL today - P0102. I figured I would clear it and see if it came back. No need to get all worried just yet as the car was still running fine. A quick search told me it was likely a faulty MAF.

I came out a bit later on to run an errand and the car wouldn’t start. Well, it started but immediately died. Going for the most likely cause, I unplugged the MAF and, sure enough, it fired right up. Fortunately, I happened to have a new MAF sitting in my parts bin. Picked it up from a forum member a couple of years ago for $75 just because it was a good deal and I knew I would probably need one some day.

I put it in, fired up the car, and went for a test drive. The difference in throttle response was truly amazing. The flat spot I’ve had at around 4k for the last while was completely gone, so this part must have been on the way out for a while. The cool part is knowing that if I had towed the car in to the dealer they probably would have soaked me for at least a grand for the repair and this cost me nothing more than a part I already had and an hour of my time. The other cool thing is that I wouldn’t have had a clue how to diagnose and fix this if it wasn’t for the wealth of information accessible through this forum.

Hindsight… I should have heeded the early warning I got the other night. I had my foot to the floor (how unusual) and at about 4k in 4th it suddenly lagged out for a second and then kicked in again. It ran fine after that and all my gauges were normal so I ignored it as an anomaly.

The sensor in the old MAF was filthy, caked with 17 years worth of dust. I’ll get some MAF cleaner and see if that fixes it as it is handy to have a spare, as I learned today.

congrats, yes it is nice to plug in an obd2 reader and tells you most of the problems, with boxsters I have learned that there are two things that produce 90% of poor running engine symptoms: MAF and vacuum leaks