Possible MAF Issue?

On my way to work today my CEL light cames on. Now its raining outside so the first thought that came in my mind was $#% don't tell me i'm sucking up water through the CAI. I made it into my jobs parking lot and the car is struggling and feels like its about to cut off. It sounds as if she is on life support trying to breathe. I let the car run for 5 to 10 minutes. RPMs are bouncing a little over 1k. It Idles rough and slowly trys to smooth out. I pop the hood and I barely see any water. I rev the engine up a little and so far everything seems normal. I cut the car off, then start it again and it starts then stop. I try it again and give it gas but it cuts off. I check under the hood, inspect the CAI and find NO water. My filter is barely wet. I check my MAF sensor no water is on it but one of the wires connecting to my MAF popped! I have no clue how this happen but reguardless its a problem. I checked and this wire and its connected to a larger set of wires. I'm sure ya'll know what I'm talking about. After looking, Could this be the cause of my car keep shutting off? Also, do I have to replace all of these wires just for this small one or could I try and figure out a way to reconnect the wire?

Fyi the wire that broke is light blue just in case any of you guys might have an idea which wire this is.

I was going to direct you to the other mazda3 forum site but I see you are already there. Good luck!

cmedrive said:

I was going to direct you to the other mazda3 forum site but I see you are already there. Good luck!

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Thanks. I have to take apart the MAF clip and re attach the wire.

yeah i would think you have to solder the wire back as best you can with taking the top off of the maf... or talk with jason at mazdaparts and get a new maf... good luck.

tsunami said:

yeah i would think you have to solder the wire back as best you can with taking the top off of the maf... or talk with jason at mazdaparts and get a new maf... good luck.

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Yea man thanks. I'm still trying to figure how I plan on doing this. Its raining outside and I have access to no tools and on top of that i'm at work!

So... I had the very exact same experience! I too suspected sucking up some water in the ol CIA. Took the vehicle to the dealer... they saw the mil on and checked the code. Had a MAF code so they put on a new Maf. Low and behold as soon as I got the car back, same issue. It turned out to be one the wires in the connector as you said. They rplaced the connector , and reinstalled my old maf(always ask for your old parts back!lol) and everything was hunky dory.

whosyourmike

can anyone tell me the order of the wires by color? i had to do the same thing but they said that the wiring wasn't under waranty. and i can't find just the wiring for the maf and they said it would cost around 1k to fix...

one way to tell if it is a bad maf sensor is when it is acting up, unplug it. If it gets better, it means the pcms preset calbrations kicked in and the maf was not reading or working properly. If it is still running bad or whatever, it is not the maf sensor. Very easy diagnosis

whosyourmike said:

So... I had the very exact same experience! I too suspected sucking up some water in the ol CIA. Took the vehicle to the dealer... they saw the mil on and checked the code. Had a MAF code so they put on a new Maf. Low and behold as soon as I got the car back, same issue. It turned out to be one the wires in the connector as you said. They rplaced the connector , and reinstalled my old maf(always ask for your old parts back!lol) and everything was hunky dory.

whosyourmike

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I was unaware that the dealer can replace the connector to the MAF sensor. Does someone sell these connectors?

I made the stupid mistake of not having enough slack in the wires when I added my CAI and pulled a wire out of the connector. (bang) The Mazda stealership told me that they didn't sell "just the connector." That I'd have to buy an entire harness for over $1,000! I had a friend in the auto-body industry help me to get the pin in the connector pulled out and a new wire resolded in place and used some flexible, epoxy-like, insulating stuff to hold it back in the connector. Everything is cool now. However, if it happens again to that same wire, I'm screwed because of filling the area around that wire with the epoxy-like stuff--It had to be done but I'll never get the pin back out again.

Was the stealership (imagine this...) lying to me? Is this connector really available to purchase without having to purchase an entire harness? If so, where? I tried some salvage yards but haven't had any luck in finding one intact. Heard from multiple sources that the wires leading in to the MAF connector have a tendancy to be very brittle on the Mazda 3. One yard said that if they had one (they didn't) they'd sell it to me for $60 because it would break-up the integrity of the wiring harness. I would just like to have one as a backup just-in-case. Any help/ideas?

what it is, is a plug connector. they push all the pins out of the old connector then put the pins in the new connector with tighter fittings for the pins, not very common on mazda 3's but more common on the proteges