I was driving today and all of the sudden my car started running extremely poorly. Check engine came on for a P0101 maf circuit issue. It was stuck reading 2.3 g/s and would not fluctuate while giving it throttle. If I unplugged the maf it went to 0 g/s and the car would stall. When plugged in it would idle but not much more. After trying to make it down the road with little success it started reading normal again and driving fine. About a minute later same issue. While I was waiting for a tow truck, I decided to try to move my car forward into some shade. It again ran normal and is back to reading the correct grams per second. I drove home about 20 miles with no more issues. Because the issue is gone now I don't know where to begin to fix this problem from happening again. Does anyone have any idea what might have caused this? I will point out that I bought a extremely cheap maf sensor ($40) probably from China. I also did all my harness myself so it could be a connection or ground issue. I'm just confused by the fact that it stuck at 2.3 g/s. I would think a loose connection would read 0 or a poor connection would read low but still fluctuate with throttle. Any advice would be much appreciated.

 

Buy a replacement and swap the sensor. Probably internal circuitry issue

 

That would be my bet. You probably have better luck with a maf from the junkyard vs the cheap one.

 

If you are going to stay with a maf try and get a good one like the others said. I had the same issue with a cheap one I bought from rockauto.