Actually, not totally new to Hondas....I had an early CRX in the late 80's and loved it till it rusted away.

Currently have three first generation Dodge Cummins diesel trucks, a Chevy Cruze 1.4 turbo 6MT (wife), an 02 Golf TDI (winter beater), an 02 Subaru Legacy wagon (son #2), an 03 Jeep Wrangler X (son #1). Yes, my insurance company loves me mailing them a house payment every month.

What brought me here? I got tired of Subarus (rust/head gaskets) and Volkswagens (electrical problems/design problems/service and company arrogance way out of proportion to the quality of their produccts) so decided to look at old CR-V's (AWD + manual transmission + Honda) and that led me here. Discovered the burned valve problem prior to looking at my target CR-V so I knew better than to think it was something simple in the ignition system, thank you very much.

Been getting lots of good advice here, thanks to everyone who provided it. i haven't bought anything yet (still waiting on the car lot to decide whether to fix or sell me the target CR-V as is) but I know where to look before I buy anything that has Honda on it.