K&N oil contaminates mass air flow sensor...?

Question

I have a 2000 Mercury Grand Marquis. Do you think this will happen to my car? How hard is it to clean the mass air flow sensor? How and why does this happen?

Answer 1

Clean the mass sensor with Carb cleaner. What’s happening is when you use the charge kit on the filter you’re putting too much on to it. You need to also properly wipe down the filter before it is installed back in to the car. However if the Mass does become contaminated just use carb cleaner on it. It's designed to break down oil and other greased. Should not affect the Mass sensor. Hope this helps. Also K&N has a support line that you can contact.

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Answer 2

Mass Air Flow sensors are very sensitive components and any build up on them has devastating consequences to engine performance. Fords are especially prone to Mass Air Flow sensor problems, and K&N filters can really exacerbate them. The MAF is located in the incoming air stream, right after the filter box and has electrical current travelling through it. The powertrain control module monitors the temperature of the hotwire in the MAF, and the current going through it to maintain a specified temperature to determine how much air is coming in. It uses other sensor input for this as well, such as intake air temperature. If contaminants get onto the wire, then it can cause the sensor to under or over report the amount of air going into the engine and this will cause an incorrect air/fuel mixture. The MAF is THE MOST IMPORTANT sensor input to the powertrain control module for fuel control. Even though there are other sensors that help with fuel control, engine coolant temperature sensor, oxygen sensor, intake air temperature sensor, manifold absolute pressure sensor, etc, they cannot completely over rule the MAF, and anything from excessive emissions, poor fuel economy all of the way to running badly, poor acceleration or even stalling can result. I think that if you contacted a Ford service technician they would tell you to remove the K&N and replace it with O.E., which is the same information we would give to you at my shop. Hope that this helps explain some of it to you.

Answer 3

7. Will a K&N filter cause my vehicle’s mass air sensor to fail?

No, it is both impossible and ridiculous.

It is impossible because we know that the oil treatment on our cotton is very small (usually less than 2 ounces). Once the oil is properly and evenly absorbed through the cotton, no oil will come off, even under extreme engine conditions. It is ridiculous, because no dealership or service provider has ever been able to provide us with evidence to support this “myth,” and in fact, our investigations have revealed that even authorized dealerships are simply speculating and do not have the test equipment necessary to know whether the sensor has failed or why. It is even more ridiculous because some car manufacturers use and sell air filters treated with oil on a regular basis. There are also major brands of disposable air filters that are treated with oil. We all use oil for the same reason, it helps in the filtration efficiency of an air filter.

Out of the millions of air filters we sell, we only receive a handful of consumer complaints each month that a dealership or service provider has blamed a vehicle sensor repair on our product. We take each complaint very seriously and see it as an opportunity to stop a consumer from being taken advantage of. We investigate the situation thoroughly and take full responsibility for resolving the issue. For more information on how we educate and persuade the service provider to reconsider their position, see Mass Air Flow Sensor Information & Testing. We are so confident in our ability to resolve these situations and help a consumer fight back that we offer our Consumer Protection Pledge.

As a result of our standing up for consumer rights and providing assistance to resolve a disagreement, we have had 77 actual sensors sent to us by dealerships who claimed our product had caused them to fail. Microscopic, electronic and chemical testing revealed that none of the 77 sensors were contaminated by K&N oil (K&N Detailed MAF Sensor Test Results). What is perhaps the single biggest clue to what is going on is that over 50% of these sensors were not broken in the first place for any reason. Click here for more information on how this may happen. For more information on this topic, see our Mass Air Flow Sensor Statement page.

Answer 4

I'm not sure that is the problem. The MAF measures the volume of oxygen in the intake, so maybe the oxygen when picks up some particles of whatever is in the oil and it doesn't register as O2 with the MAF and it messes up the mixture of gas and air. I don't think that the problem would be an actual accumulation of something on the sensor, probably the sensor doesn't register the air as 02. I would just revert back to the stock filter, the benefits of the KN probably aren't worth it.

Answer 5

I have seen this happen over and over again at my shop. Almost all caused by over oiling, but some have been caused becasue of the very fine mist of oil being sucked into the intake, causign a coating to slowly built over the MAF. Usually a cleaning can solve this, but sometimes replacement is needed. Just stick with the stock air filter. The vehicle was designed for this, and will preform the best with it. If a vehicle comes from the factory with a reusable airfiler, then it should be used, if it comes with a "paper" filter then that should be used.

Answer 6

I have never seen this happen, the only place that I have ever heard of this is on this website.

Answer 7

Only if you overfill it.