MAF cleaning... Easiest project yet and a must.

[mptoledo]

I don't know why you are arguing with me. Before the Mass airflow my care would startup, spit and sputter for a couple of minutes and it would turn my garage into a white fog zone. After the air flow clean, it starts fine, idles fine, no codes and no smoke. I don't know what to tell you. I am just making an observations. Haven't had smoke in 300miles since. Maybe it was something else that mysteriously fixed itself. I really don't know. I have had the cloud of smoke in the past on start up when I hadn't driven it for awhile, but this was much more profound and in greater volumes.

[blue2000s]

Originally Posted by mptoledo

I don't know why you are arguing with me. Before the Mass airflow my care would startup, spit and sputter for a couple of minutes and it would turn my garage into a white fog zone. After the air flow clean, it starts fine, idles fine, no codes and no smoke. I don't know what to tell you. I am just making an observations. Haven't had smoke in 300miles since. Maybe it was something else that mysteriously fixed itself. I really don't know. I have had the cloud of smoke in the past on start up when I hadn't driven it for awhile, but this was much more profound and in greater volumes.

I guess I misunderstood. The smoke came after it was running then, not from starting? That makes sense.

[saturk]

How long was the battery disconnected during the MAF cleaning? What about reprogramming the radio?

[chitowndad]

Blue2000S,
IMO, you're correct... I've also noted that if I pull the car out of the garage, wash it, put it back in the garage then take it out 2 days later it blows blue smoke - everytime. If I drive it put it away and take it out the next day for another drive it doesn't blow smoke.

I have a theory that it has to do with the pressure in the engine when you start it but don't let it warm up it has higher pressure so the oil seeps through and when it's warm the engine doesn't have as much air pressure in it... This is just a theory, I'm not a mechanic.

-Steve

[mptoledo]

Yep we probably were talking about two different, but similiar things

As for the radio codes: I swapped out the hunk of junk last year(best thing I have done to date). You will need your code. It only takes about 10 or 15 minutes, but I always let it off for an hour or even overnight.

Let me reiterate this. This operation is almost free and almost foolproof. As long as you don't short out the sensor when you take it out, no harm can come from this and it really needs to be done from time to time, Heck I would do it Yearly or Bi-yearly.

[spanoulis]

I totally agree! This was a simple project I would not have thought about had it not been for my check engine light coming on. After taking it to Auto zone for testing, they could not find the fault code. On a whim I decided to try this. It worked! Light went out. Car definitely runs just a hair faster. Cost is minimal, (especially compared to taking it into the dealership for diagnosis), time investment is minimal. Just do it. Your car will thank you.

[aahighfly]

I have had two occasions with the CEL light on my 2001. Both times I had a rough idle at start up and the car would sometimes blow smoke on the initial start. The first occasion also followed the installation of a K&N air filter. I didn't notice if I had run the car previously without a thorough warm up or not, as mentioned by another post. My mechanic claimed it was a faulty air oil separator and coincidentally the MAF sensor also needed replacement both times. He blamed it on infrequent driving and long intervals (5000k miles) between oil changes. $1250 for replacement of both, each time. Research indicates a faulty air oil separator can cause high manifold vacuum causing oil ingestion into the induction system, which could explain the smoke and contaminated MAF sensor. I am curious why the air oil separator would fail, how it fails, and why my mechanic would not clean my dirty MAF sensor instead of replacing it. (other than greed of course). Any expert knowledge on this problem? It sound common considering the number of posts.