Hello and thanks for taking a minute to read this.
I recently obtained a 2008 GL320 (200k), when I bought it was in limp mode with every light on the dash possible, I know, I should have ran away like my hair was on fire, but I don't think I will ever learn to stay away from orphaned vehicles, anyway, the truck would drive at freeway speeds and wasn't overheating and made it home, over 500 miles. When I got it home I used my scanner on it to try and figure where to start, over 20 codes were stored but it had 2 active faults, one was for no boost, I tracked that down to the infamous broken wire on the turbo actuator, I tried to solider it, but I just couldn't get it to stick well enough for my liking, so I ordered a new one, turbo now works, boost is there truck is out of limp mode. The other fault was a MAF (hot film fault, left) the old air intake was broken in a few places so I bit the bullet and ordered a new one with 2 new MAF's installed. so after clearing everything, I get it to run ,but CEL comes right back with the MAF fault again, but the truck runs fine UNTIL it warms up, then the idle dips and it will stall when going into reverse, and it has a stumble in the 1500- 2100 rpm range, over 2100 it pulls well and seams to drive ok until you have to stop, then the bouncing idle and stalling happens. I have tested the MAF sensors and they are in spec. I have tried to scour the forms to find my symptoms, but I have found nothing matching, but I did find a post that mentioned disconnecting both MAF's, and I tried it and low and behold it works! Truck idles smoothly no stalling and only a slight hesitation at about 1800rpm.My scanner wont let program anything so I'm thinking I may need a STAR system to figure out what going on (anybody have a rental Star in the North Chicagoland area?) Here's where I need advice, is running without the MAF's harmful? Has anybody had this problem? Thanks in advance for any advice.