The History:
My wife bought her 99 Civic LX from Carmax in 2002 with about 30K miles. About a year after buying it (and 3mo after the 36K dealer service), the A/C compressor seized up and had to be replaced. This was quite costly...

The Problem:
Starting around 3 years ago (2004 w/ ~50K mi & about a year after the A/C compressor replaced), the car began to act quite odd. Specifically when the car is just started / cold start (warm or cold weather), for about the first 10 min the engine almost wants to cut-off. Until the engine is fully warmed-up, it idles exceptionally rough and drops very low. Usually the engine will almost die out while driving a few times in the first 10 min or so. You will have your foot on the accelerator driving down the road, then suddenly the RPMs drop to below 500 and no further power is transferred to the road (almost coasting). No matter how far you press down on the gas, it just sits stupid in low idle for about 2 or 3 seconds then suddenly lurches back up. It will repeat this a few times randomly until the engine is completely warmed up. Even if you put the transmission in neutral the idle does not pickup, so it is not load related.

Once the engine completely warms up this problem goes away. Again it will do this in the middle of the summer the same as in the winter - the only difference is in the summer it does it for about 5 - 10 min & the winter about 10 - 15 min.

Taking it to a few shops has just been frustrating since I have been given a litany issues / solutions costing from $850 - $2500. Obviously going with the cheapest is not the best option and $850 isn’t chicken feed. I can’t even remember all of the “issues” identified, but with my fairly decent knowledge some were just ridiculous. At 50K the timing belt should not have been the cause, but was suggested at that time.

Changing the distributor, plugs & cables did not help, nor did having the fuel injector cleaned. Proper oil and filter changes have also been done. The car now has 80K and had this problem for about 3 years.

I am hoping someone might be aware of this issue and have some good suggestions

Thanks!

 

Have you tried cleaning out the IACV?

 

No I haven't...

I have heard conflicting reports on cleaning the IACV. That cleaning can affect proper functioning and that it should just be replaced... Any thoughts on that?

Thanks

 

I've cleaned mine before, with good results.

Isopropyl or brake cleaner should to the trick.