A4 not running after changing mass airflow meter

A4 not running after changing mass airflow meter

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CDP

Original Poster:

7,459 posts

254 months

Sunday 19th January 2020
quotequote all
OK, I broke the car.

I swapped fitted a new mass airflow meter last night. Now the car will start but won’t run. I suspect connections aren’t good. Any other thoughts?

It might be a faulty part, it did come from Bosch...

Audi A4 2008 1.8 turbo.

Scrump

21,983 posts

158 months

Sunday 19th January 2020
quotequote all
Put the old one back in and see if the car runs.

CDP

Original Poster:

7,459 posts

254 months

Sunday 19th January 2020
quotequote all
Scrump said:
Put the old one back in and see if the car runs.
It was my plan smile

autohead

88 posts

106 months

Sunday 19th January 2020
quotequote all
It should run with it disconnected

CDP

Original Poster:

7,459 posts

254 months

Sunday 19th January 2020
quotequote all
autohead said:
It should run with it disconnected
It does, though on connecting the new sensor the engine stalls which is a fairly good indication of a MAF fault.

I've put the old sensor back in for now while a replacement comes.

milkround

1,118 posts

79 months

Sunday 19th January 2020
quotequote all
Why did you change it if it's working?

If you have a good one and the right kit then back probe all the connections. See what they say. Then compare it to what the new one shows. A wiring diagram will be needed to understand what should be going on. You will have a live and ground and usually a couple of signal wires.

If you know what the signal wire is then you can also use an osilloscope to see what is going on if you have one. But most folks don't.

And there is the possibility all of this has nothing to do with a MAF sensor if you have disturbed something else. But if it's working with the old one again I doubt it. My best guess would be something relating to grounding on the new sensor. You can easily test for this with a DMM.




CDP

Original Poster:

7,459 posts

254 months

Thursday 23rd January 2020
quotequote all
milkround said:
Why did you change it if it's working?

If you have a good one and the right kit then back probe all the connections. See what they say. Then compare it to what the new one shows. A wiring diagram will be needed to understand what should be going on. You will have a live and ground and usually a couple of signal wires.

If you know what the signal wire is then you can also use an osilloscope to see what is going on if you have one. But most folks don't.

And there is the possibility all of this has nothing to do with a MAF sensor if you have disturbed something else. But if it's working with the old one again I doubt it. My best guess would be something relating to grounding on the new sensor. You can easily test for this with a DMM.
Thanks for the tip and considered doing this but didn't fancy dragging my nice clean digital scope into the garage. I've got an spare one I'm meaning to sell (Rigol 50MHz). Reading around I'd need to measure the frequency of the pulses.

I changed it because the car didn't feel anything like as fast as it should be 160bhp and the garage agreed. They suggested the MAF might be faulty (or clogged) as this is frequently the issue - it had shown a fault on their system.

I can now hear the turbo spool up and there's a whoosh when changing gears so I am pretty sure it is down to a poor seal on the vacuum system - an ODBC2 reader has also suggested this. The diagnostic system is getting a reading from the new MAF.