Wierd hesitation on Mazda 323 - Sorted, cleaned the AFM

[no_8wire]

My girlfriend has a 2000 Mazda Familia wagon 1.5 ZL that is giving weird issues.

Basically the car was stuttering at low speeds and hesitating then taking off once you reached about 4000rpm.

I replaced the filthy air filter and sparkplugs, which seemed to make a difference to the stutttering.

But the car still feels like it is hesitating struggling to breathe/go under 4000rpm. It has no go or power (even for a 1.5L) but once you reach over the threshold, it picks up and flys in comparison.

Even when the car is stationary and you rev it the car will not freely rev until over 4000rpm. Even with no load it is sluggish and hesitant in how it revs at low rpm.



Any ideas on what I could check?
Its got me stumped at the moment...because it is also somewhat intermittent.

[wde_bdy]

Try cleaning AFM, was a temporary fix on my 1500 Demio. I have two so was able to troubleshoot by swapping parts, had very similar symptoms.

Callum

[no_8wire]

The wire with a orange glob on the end on the left of the photo?


I cleaned that softly with carb cleaner and an very small piece of cotton wool.

Do you need to clean up the larger tube as well on the right)?

[wde_bdy]

Don't think mine looked like that, I just sprayed it full of AFM cleaner from Repco. Was only a temporary fix and I ended up getting a new AFM.

Callum

[sergei]

The wire with a orange glob on the end on the left of the photo?


I cleaned that softly with carb cleaner and an very small piece of cotton wool.

Do you need to clean up the larger tube as well on the right)?

The orange blob is just a thermistor (temp sensor), the real guts are inside of the black tube: you can see it usually covered in crap if you look inside.

[no_8wire]

Sweet, I will give the insides a good clean and see if that make a difference.

[B_giB]

The little wire in side is VERY thin, do not touch it with anything, just spray and walk away!

[no_8wire]

Spray from a safe distance, a few short bursts a couple of times rather than a hard long blast... I believe that is the accepted way to do it without damage?

[B_giB]

Correct!

[BZG Wagon]

There's a thread I have on another forum outlining what happened to my GF's car, plus how I diagnosed it:
http://www.amazd.co.nz/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=19725

Could be of help.

[no_8wire]

Cleaning the afm sorted it... amazing how much difference it makes to driving the car.

Will keep an eye on it to see it if happens again and need to replace the afm, but hopefully it has sorted the issue