Slightly roasted mass air flow sensor?
 

I looked at the MAF sensor on the vehicle today and the color looks like it's slightly smoked. It's supposed to be a white color but it's a bit yellow/brownish. Something wrong?

Did you try and clean it off? MAF sensor cleaner is probably best (lots of other stuff works, but that is the easiest to recommend.)

I'm going to guess it is fine, you have huge amounts of air moving past that so some staining may happen, and as I recall many mafs do have self cleaning cycles so some heating may occur too.

BTW, that little black thing with the two wires is the intake air temp sensor. Engine uses that value along with the volume flow to compute the intake air charge density...just fyi

A

the plastic does nothing. only the wires matter. looks OK to me.

The only problem here is the SA "claims" he put in a new MAF sensor and after about 200 miles, the MAF sensor doesn't look too new to me.

And I'm thinking not every MAF sensor has such smoky stain.

Not sure if I should insist to the SA it's definitely not new or maybe it turns into such color in so short a time?

1. The actual MAF sensor itselt should be inside that plastic. The wires and that black ball tip are the thermistor.

2. Try and wipe off the brown stuff...

3. Did the paperwork show a new MAF?

4. If you have issues, I'd worry about it- otherwise I'd personally not be concerned.

It'll NOT come off. It seems like the stain's been permanently burned in possibly by some high temp heat.

BTW, while I was trying to wipe if off with a slightly wet tissue, I accidentally let the tissue come in contact with the wires and possibly the black ball tip. Spraying a electrical contact cleaner will help?

Wet as in water? Don't do that.

MAF cleaner is essentially a 'non-residual' contact cleaner. The idea is to not leave anything behind.

One of the ways MAFs fail is that over time they become contaminated (INSIDE, not that brown stain) and the linearity of the response changes.

That maf may have simply been touched with a dirty hand when it was being removed....

Yeah, a tissue slightly wet with water. I should've been more careful. The tissue came in contact with the wires. I'm ordering the MAF sensor cleaner...

If you are talking about the wires with the black glob at the end which can be seen in the photo, no big deal as that is not the actual MAF. It is for measuring the temperature of the air and is most likely a thermistor of some kind.

Isn't the MAF sensor cleaner made to clean the wires? The actual sensor inside the casing looks to be difficult to be sprayed on and cleaned, the only exposed part of the package seems to be the wires/black glob.