permanent P0102 readiness monitor stuck "incomplete"

My 2010's ECM has remembered a 'permanent' P0102 for months now, ever since one time I briefly had the MAF sensor unplugged.

Of course that was easily fixed by plugging it back in. There wasn't anything wrong with the sensor to begin with; having it unplugged was what set that code the only time. The code has never been logged again as a pending, current, or historic code, not even in the extra-sensitive 'check mode'. It only lingers on in the 'permanent' column.

There is no 'code clear' for codes in the permanent column. They only go away after the right number of drives all achieve the "normal" judgment in the All Readiness utility query for that code. For each code, there's a Confirmation Driving Pattern in the manual that is supposed to be enough to get to "normal" judgment for that code. (If a problem still exists, it gets an "abnormal" judgment. If for some reason not all the enabling conditions for making the judgment were met, it stays "incomplete".)

After yesterday, because of water pump experiments, I also had a permanent water pump code. This evening I made that one go away by looking up the confirmation driving pattern in the manual, and doing that, and then doing a Universal Trip, and the next time I started the car, the permanent water pump code was gone. Just the way it's supposed to work.

But this permanent P0102 has never gone away. The All Readiness utility query for it always shows "incomplete", as though some enabling condition for making the judgment is never being met, so it can never decide if the problem's fixed or not.

What's most weird is this code has about the simplest imaginable confirmation drive. The P0102 code means that the MAF sensor was read as under 0.2 volts. The confirmation driving pattern is every bit of: start the engine and let it idle for five seconds. That's it. If the ECM sees that the voltage isn't under 0.2, that's supposed to earn a normal judgment. In five seconds flat.



And in the section where the manual lists preconditions, other things that have to be satisfied before the judgment can be rendered on this code ... well, there aren't any.



And yet, in multiple drives, way beyond five seconds of idling, hitting all the conditions needed for all the other monitors to be complete, the judgment for this one code is just staying "incomplete" forever.

It makes me wonder if really there is some odd enabling condition for this code's monitor and they forgot to mention it in the manual. Anybody know what it is?

 

I was at first concerned about that "at the same time" part, because in Techstream the help that pops up for a 'permanent' code says that all permanent codes get cleared at once, and only when all of them have been judged normal the right number of times.

I was afraid that meant as long as this P0102 judgment stayed 'incomplete', no other permanent code would go away ever, and my ECM would just become an etch-a-sketch of every code I'd ever had with no way to get rid of them.

But the section in the manual about permanent codes does not say that about them all going away together. And that isn't what happened. My pump permanent code did go away last night, just after driving the confirmation pattern and the universal trip, just the way it's supposed to.

So I'm back to just the permanent P0102. There's never a current problem reported with the MAF, the engine is running in closed loop and the MAF values are fine. The judgment never completes and says abnormal. It just never completes.

It really seems as if either the enabling conditions or the confirmation pattern must be wrong in the manual for that code. I'm hoping someone has run into it before and knows "oh, yeah, the manual left out that you have to do X."

 

I'm looking for a better way. I've got stuff in there that would get discombobulated if I shook it.

 

Saaay, now that could mean that after my trip to Anderson the other day ... [hauls out laptop, checks out car] ... woo hoo! All Readiness shows the P0102 monitor is at last complete and normal, and the DTC list shows the permanent code is gone!

Just hadn't had much occasion to drive like that over the last year.