ErinWik

My car is a 2001 honda accord lx 4 cylinder automatic. I had an oil gush a 7 months back. almost $800 later, all new seals, water pump and timing belt changed. Now my car is now running rough. for a while it wouldnt pick up speed very well, you could push the peddle to the floor and it wouldnt go like it used to. Then on the interstate during vacation, while my hubby was trying to pass a slower car, when he tried to speed up quickly the engine started to sputter and the RPM gage bounced like crazy between 2 to 4, back and forth really fast. Once he let off the gas it stopped.

We took it to autozone to have them look the check engine light code up for us, which all they said was it was a generic code for any of the sensors or air filter. We replaced the spark plugs and wires figuring it was time to change them anyways and replaced the air filter, which was rather dirty. the car has 130k miles, which is a lot for a 2001 i realize, but ive been on forums and it seems a lot of people say its the MAF, but then others say hondas dont use MAF but MAP. But I was able to pull up MAF parts for honda accords. So I have tried to research and just gotten myself confused. One site suggested to take off the MAF and drive the car without it for a few blocks and if the problem went away then thats what needs to be replaced.

Is this a common problem and are they any other ways to check to see what the problem is? I love my car and unfortunately I cant afford another $800 repair right now.