The method for the fault diagnosing of the air intake system of a gasoline engine, not detected by the on-board diagnostics system in a car, is described in this article. The aim is to detect and identify such faults like changes in sensor characteristic, faults of mass airflow measurement in the intake manifold or manifold leakages. These faults directly affect the air intake system performance that results in engine roughness and a power decrease. The method is based on the generation of residuals on the grounds of differences in indications of the manifold absolute pressure (MAP) and mass air flow (MAF) sensors installed in the car and the virtual, model-based sensors. The empirical model for the fault-free state was constructed at stationary operations of the engine. The residuals were then evaluated to classify the system health. Investigations were conducted for a conventional gasoline engine with port-fuel injection (PFI) and for a gasoline direct injection engine (GDI).