1996 mazda 626: lack of power
 

Hi, Car is a 1996 Mazda 626 v4 2.0L automatic
Today my daughter was driving her car and she called us to say her car was not accelerating that she had her gas pedal to the floor. When we got home the husband and I jump in the car drove down the street and could feel the car hesitaed and only reach up to 40mph on flat surface. Then we decided to tried a hill and it went up to 20 even trying to go in 1 gear and 2nd gear.We had the fuel filter replace leaks repaired and know we are told the catalystic converter needs repair and something about cleaning out well I forgot. please let me know what it could be. The trans got repair as there was a leak it would jump when put in gear once fix the car work good. My daughters first car and she is getting upset having to put more money into it.Its a nice looking car and I would hate to have to trash it. Thank you Pam

update on lack of power
 

well we paid
$200 to get the upstream sensor fix but the mechanics wanted to charge use a total of $600. for the upstream sensor and the mass air flow sensor but we just had them do the upstream sensor because when they removed it they strip the thread of they old one. So we brought car home to look up new mass air flow sensor (car was still driving under 35mph and the mechanics had unplug the mass flow sensor so we can drive it home) So while looking on the internet we came across a site on how to clean the mass air flow sensor so we went to the auto store bought a $7. can of MAF cleaner removed the sensor sprayed it let it air dry put it back on the car reset the car buy removing the neg. battery cable stepping on the brake for 30+ sec. then put the cable back on started up the car took it for a spin went on the freeway and baby let us push 80mph and we have'nt had a problem since save us $400. and we know if it starts up again we know were all 4 sensor or and the MAF sensor and what it would cost us to do it are self. :) to save $