I just discovered this board, and I'm very impressed. I have a 2000 2 door Blazer. Recently, I've been having a problem with the engine hesitating when I start driving after having the car off for a while.

I've been reading on here that some people have had good luck after cleaning the MAF sensor. Some posts mentioned that they were using a K&N air filter, which would cause the sensor to become dirty faster. I don't use a K&N filter, but could my MAF sensor still be dirty? I've never cleaned it in the 2 years I've owned the car. I had a full tune up just over a year ago. I was going to try changing the fuel filter, but I may try cleaning the MAF sensor first. I have a can of Radio Shack contact cleaner, would that do the job?

Thanks

 

The contact cleaner should do a good job. Cleaning the MAF won't hurt anything so long as you don't break off the wires for the elements. If you just hit them with the stream from the contact cleaner can, you shouldn't have anything to worry about. The elements should be a light tan color on the resistor portion. You may have to pull the housing apart to get to the front side of the elements as the MAF screen will be in the way.

The fuel filter would not be a bad choice for preventative maintenance. One word of warning, it seems from other boards that I am a part of that the Napa/Wix fuel filters have quite a bit more restriction in them than others and some are having poor fuel mileage issues with them. Many have switched out the Napa/Wix fuel filter to find mpg increases of 2-3mpg from the filter change alone. There is also speculation that the increase in restriction is causing premature fuel pump failure. Fuel filters that have been recommended instead are the purolator, fram, or ac delco. I have always used purolator fuel filters so I do not know if the napa/wix filters actually do have a restriction problem, but it seems more and more wide spread throughout the 3800 community.

 

Well I took the MAF sensor out and it certainly was dirty. I was able to get most of the black stuff off, and the car certainly seems to be accelerating a lot better now. The only thing I'm still noticing that I didn't mention before is a squeaking sound when I push the gas pedal. It's a noise that will stay there until I let off the gas, so it doesn't seem to simply be coming from the pedal mechanism itself. I will also hear the squeaking when I use cruise control.

Any ideas?

 

how long does this take to do? and... Swart, wanna help me with it tuesday? i dont even kno where it is or what it looks like...its up 2 u...i dont wanna intrude

 

Not long at all. We can do that tuesday as well. Not a problem!

 

cool thanks