The only time the coolant has been dealt with is as a check-mark box when I do an oil change or as a service item. I don't remember anyone needing to add coolant and it has always appropriately winterized. The thermostat has never been looked at or touched.

I had never mentioned to anyone that the temp had risen on the gauge till I came here. I was never concerned about the rise for it is still well within normal according to the gauge, it is just higher than it used to be.

I can certainly remove a fuse, if that will help. It sounds like the automotive equivalent to rebooting a PC. Will it remove power to my radio? It is rather an outright pain to get all the settings just right again.

 

It wasn't a criticism. I learn new stuff all the time on this board. And the only reason I know a bit about my car is because I have the time - and am too damn cheap to pay someone else - to to fix it when it's broken.

Please let us know how the compression test turns out.

 

Yes the settings on the radio will be lost.

Trying to follow this, let me see if I have it:
1) Looping idle. IACV has been cleaned and the coolant level is fine and no trapped air, would think the dealer would have checked/done all of this?
So, back to the tune up. What brand plugs did they use?
Or is the idle issue more like a miss than a "loop"? Loop=bounces between normal and ~1,200 rpm's.

2) Power loss-was this there before the tune up? What rpm range do this seem to happen?

 

The idle loop bounces between 750->500->750 with 750 rpm's being normal unless the air conditioner is on and then everything goes up aprox. 250 rpm's. At 1,000 rpm's and greater, there is no roughness and it is smooth as silk. At 1,250 rpm's, even if the idle drops to 1,000 rpm's for a few seconds, I wouldn't even notice it. It is not a miss, in that it will stay at the lower number for several second before returning. I repeatedly asked both shops, just to up the idle but no one has ever done it.

Yes, the IACV has been cleaned.

To my knowledge the coolant level is fine and there is no trapped air. Neither shop has ever mentioned the coolant as possibly being an issue with the idle so I have no idea if the coolant was checked. Historically, there has never been an issue with the coolant.

The power loss that I notice is at freeway speeds (2,000-2,400 rpm's in 5th gear), where going uphill I have to shift down to 4th to maintain speed. These would be hills that were not an issue when the car was new. Yes, this has been years in the making. I do not notice any power loss in city driving for there is always way more availiable than I would ever use.

I have no idea what brand of spark plugs were used. I don't even own a spark plug socket to remove one to look. I suppose I could buy one if necessary.

If the fuse would cause the radio to reset, then it is likely that the Honda dealership did that; After they returned the car, I did have to reset the radio settings to my preferences.

 

In the common diy thread on top of the gen tech help forum, there is a writeup on cleaning/tightening the FITV. That may be worth a shot.

 

P.S.

The annoyance of resetting my radio is not laziness or the station presets as much as the parametric equalizer settings and the time-delays for the various speakers. I spent a bloody fortune with the audio system. It is outright hard to get everything just right again after they are all zero'ed. If I don't get it right then I'm constantly fiddling between each song. So I hesitate in doing things that may reset the sound system.

 

I don't notice the idle hunting when the car is cold. Since the FITV is there just to increase the idle when it is cold, Will the FITV be a factor when the hunting only occurs when warm and even then the idle is decreased from the norm during the hunting rather than increasing it from the base idle?

 

The FITV should allow extra air into the engine when it is cold. When the coolant warms up, the FITV should close just like a thermostat.

If the FITV is loose or not working properly, it can add extra air to the system which the IACV will try to compensate. The quickest test is to remove the snorkel from the throttle body and cover the lower port in the throttle body to see if it stabilizes the idle. If that works, the fix is pretty simple where you remove the cover and tighten the assembly. Reset the ECU and see if the idle relearn works.

It may help you out to write down the settings for you system to speed up getting the settings to you satisfaction.

 

Once you sort out the idle....

It kind of sounds like you have some egr ports clogged (loss of power under load at that rpm range). In the same Common DIY Thread there is a write up on this.

 

Before I sort out anything, I'm going to find out about the low compression. I have an appt. Mon 10:30 at another independent shop.