So yesterday, I cleaned the MAF with Halfords Electrical Contact Cleaner. I did my usual 60 mile round trip, that I do 4 times per week (twice per day on 2 of those), and where the car reported 31mpg previously, the figure was 32.5mpg for yesterday afternoon's trip..... in other words only an arbitrary improvement.
So............. this morning (before the rain arrived!) I cleaned the MAF connection plug with electrical contact cleaner, but also then applied some Dielectric Silicone Grease to the MAF plug connections.
On starting the car this morning, it sounded smoother and seemed to pull a bit more 'perkier'. From this morning's trip, I got 38mpg, so we're definitely getting there. A definite improvement with the Dielectric Silicone Grease, because I actually drove the car considerably harder on this trip, some of it in 'sport' mode on the autobox, some of it holding it in '3rd gear' to do a bit of passive regeneration for the FAP, and generally speaking just heavier with the right foot. So to drive considerably harder on the right foot and see MPG increase from 32 to 38 is encouraging.
Now, my next concern is that while looking under the bonnet, I noticed (to the left of the MAF, on the main engine block, just to the lower right of the engine cover), some sort of plastic 'arm' that appears to have snapped where it connects to a small plastic balljoint, on some sort of pivoting device (great description I know!).
To add to my poor description, here is a photo of appalling quality! ........ Hopefully my red text fills in the gaps :-
Can anyone tell me what this is, why it might have snapped, and what the effect would be? ..... Is this the infamous swirl valve arm thingymajig?
so I reckon I could get 60 from the C5 2.0 Hdi. We are doing a trip to Yorkshire next week, the outcome of that fuel wise will determine whether I keep it or not.