Mike Frye

Hey everyone. Just wanted to wrap this up.

It turns out it was the MAF. I had it rebuilt and after I recharged the battery on my car I did the test that confirmed it.

The car was running really rough and finally didn't start (may have been a low battery at that point).

Looking at the write-up that John Speake linked to, I realized that the car should start and actually run better if you unplug the MAF if that's the cause.

I started it up today without the MAF in there and it ran OK (not great, obviously).

Put in the rebuilt MAF and it ran much better. Took it for a drive and everything works great. Nice smooth idle (will have to adjust) although it does smell a bit rich and that may be because just before the MAF died I had switched to the latest and greatest of Porken's chips. This requires the CO and idle to be adjusted and I hadn't done that.

So bottom line, if you wait too long and your MAF is out of calibration, it could stick you in 'limp home mode' in an S3 and that is NOT what you want to have happen. The MAF is something that will wear out on you and if you don't have any record of a rebuild, I recommend getting it done.

John Speake

Ok Mike, that's great ! Good to have closure on this one... :-)

Mike Frye

That's the truth. My car hasn't been off the road for that long since I did the clutch and I was starting to really miss driving it.

Thanks for your help!