An other oldie but goodie. The OP on this thread is a resurrection.

They sell MAF cleaner and I probably would try that first before replacing. It might not help but the spray cleaner is $4.00. It is a solvent and so it will solvate the oil and then it gets burned off.

 

Mini MAF wire doesn't heat up to "burn off"....I have heard of MINI owners trying the spray cleaner but it never worked.....

 

Ok, It doesn't have to heat up. You could take it out and clean it with the spray. However, it might have shorted out over time. Or, more likely, the constant oil changes resistance and an incorrect resistance basically screwed up the computer learning. The computer learns your driving habits and behaviors and responds accordingly. I think they are saying they can reset the computer learning back to factory. That is the default. I recently had this done to my truck because there was a computer update that was causing issues because of the existing learned driving habits that were not consistent with the update.

If you don't reset it back to default, when you put the new sensor in, it will have a problem reconciling the new readings with what it remembers about it. However, over time it will figure it out and fix it. The problem is you may assume the problem is not really fixed and you still have it until this process plays itself out.

You don't need heat to clean the MAS sensor with solvent. It is just a solvent based cleaner that leaves no residue which is what MAF sensor cleaner is. So it dissolves the oil and if you are spraying it while the engine is on, it pulls the solvated oil off the sensor into the engine. It will take a lot because it is probably caked all over and inside it. I would probably unplug, remove it and then put it in a sonic path of solvent. Then using compressed air spraying the air through the sensor to force everything out. Then use a fresh bath of solvent as a final.