2009 2dr auto hatch with check engine light/P0101 code

[firebird1999us]

Car has 265k miles and runs like a champ with all regular maintence. I turned it on and it ran in the driveway for like 2 minutes yesterday - when I hopped in the Check Engine light was on.

The car runs fine and when I stopped by autozone that was he code they gave me. Per their paperwork it's either a dirty MAF, a loose cable, or the computer has gone bad... would the car even be running if the computer went bad?

I've had an aftermarket K&N air filter/ typhoon intake on their for about 80k miles and cleaned it a few times with no issue. After the code I cleaned the air filter, reseated the plug on the MAF, checked all the connections, and, probably erroneously, disconnected the negative terminal as I recall this resets the computer. The check engine light went away but I suspect it will come back once everything recalibrates. Car was a little rough after the reset but has since smoothed out and drive fine on the way to work.

If the code comes back any recommendations on how to clean the MAF? Autozone sells them for like $70... but I didn't want to swap stuff out and pay $70 until I poked around a little bit.

Any suggestions?

[CrankyOldMan]

Wow, that's some serious longevity!

A can of MAF cleaner is only $10. Just make sure you don't strip the screws when you remove them, and fully seat the o-ring when you put it back.

[firebird1999us]

Wow, that's some serious longevity!

A can of MAF cleaner is only $10. Just make sure you don't strip the screws when you remove them, and fully seat the o-ring when you put it back.

Cool - the car is running fine but I just wanted to make sure I wasn't nuking the engine by driving with the code! Ha

Regarding longevity do you mean the mileage on the car or the MAF? I know there's a few ultra high mileage Yaris's around here! I'm hoping to be like that guy with the Volvo that has 3,000,000 miles! Ha

[CrankyOldMan]

Mileage on the car. Using an oiled filter will generally gunk up your MAF sensor, so it may need to be cleaned periodically.

[firebird1999us]

Up to 302,000 miles and the check engine code pops up randomly about every 4-5k miles? I had the maf cleaned when I went for an oil change and it went about 10k miles. I guess I'll grab a can of MAF cleaner or maybe get a new maf?

[bronsin]

I got a rebuild master flow sensor at Napa for 90 bucks and that was four years ago.

[firebird1999us]

345k miles and my light came back randomly then shut off. I've had the codes read at the place I use for oil changes and they said it could be the catalytc convcerter and the maf per the codes they read. It appears theres an actual toyota MAF ( 22204-22010) on amazon for like $52. Looks like that's the route I'm going! I would have gotten to it sooner but it's been strangley internittent over long stretches. Usually any time I attempt to do something about it it shuts off.