Hope someone can help me. I have a 1999 Mazda Protege with 177000 miles on it.Recently, the car sometimes (not all the time) lurches or hesitates in 1st gear, sometimes in 2nd too. At highway speed things seem ok, except for a tendency for the car to "sag" a little power wise, as if someone was lightly touching the breaks. I kind of think that it is not the clutch (though I might be wrong) as I can hold the car on a steep hill with clutch pressure and not have any slippage. Any ideas on what this might be?

Thanks

 

does the car shake at all while it lurches or does it just kinda jump when your shifting gears?

 

Thanks for the response. In answer to your question neither, the car is slow to pick up speed and "surges" in first, causes the lurching. I disconnected the Mass Air Flow and the car ran very well, so I figure that the MAF must be the problem. I thought I'd take it out and clean it but I see that someone else already had a go and the screw heads are stripped, any ideas? I'm hesitant to drill the screws out and I can't sem to find an extractor small enough to fit and a robertson head doesn't work as it just rounds the heads out even more.

Thanks

 

this is a 1.6l engine correct. these maf sensors were very prone to failure, symptoms match those you described. cleaning it has a slight chance of success
but its worth a try.
to remove the stripped screw heads, i would suggest a reverse drill bit. sometimes the bit will bite hard enough to back the screw out. if not just drill deep enough to remove the head of the screws only. use a vise grip (if needed) to remove the rest after the maf has been removed.
cheap aftermarket air filters with loose fibers are the main cause of failure. ( the fibers melt onto the sensor wires)

 

yeah canadian tire came out with a tool to slove that problem you drill the screw head and use there special screw head to reverse it out but it might be a problem if your not from canada lol

 

Thanks for the info! I did go down to the local Candian Tire to see if they had the reverse bits - out of stock - must be lots of stripped screws out there! 1.6L yes. I took off the top of the airfilter cover and the hose unit with the sensor attached and soaked the whole thing in non-chlorinated brake cleaner for a few minutes andlet it dry over night. Put it back on the car this morning and gave a good test drive - all fine, no lurching or bucking smooth acceleration (well for a 1.6l anyway!). One thing I did notice was that the underside of thehose between the airfilter and the engine had a good sized split in it. I wonder how much of an impact this split had on the MAF situation, must have caused some problem, I guess.

Thanks for the help.

 

if the intake boot is torn, replace it. a torn boot will cause a lean condition and mimic the conditions you are trying to fix.
inspect all engine and trans mounts. broken mounts, as well as normal wear and tear can cause the boot to crack.

 

Hi there. Know it's a bit late, but had a look at old Forum info regarding Protege Hesitation and that cleared up a few things.I own a beautifull 99' protege and it has just started hesitating a bit when accelerated-like some one touches the brake or the aircon gets switched on while driving.Will clean MAS asap.Thanks for the thread as the info helped a lot.

 

Please go to the post by Adam S of 13 04 2009 entitled
I have a 2000 Mazda Protege, 1.8L with 5 speed manual transmission @ 190,000 kms. and follow through the responses.
Go through the routine I outlined there before starting to attack the MAF etc. Your symptoms are very similar to this case, and going through the protocol I described will entail minimal expense and risk, and ought to be done occasionally in any case.