First things first he should atleast get the codes check on the car then go from their. Being that checking the codes is probably the cheapest thing he can do right now before he starts replacing stuff. I have had allot of O2 sensors go bad normally I havent seen them act in this fassion when they go bad. The biggest thing I notice is I fail the emissions test. Which requires a new O2 sensor run it back on the dyno. Pass the emissions test. While I'm not ruling out the O2 sensor. The codes will probably reveal it. If not he can get and emissions test to see if passes.

Mechanic immediately said the throttle body had been tampered with and suggested to replace it. So I agreed. Will be $140 for parts and labour. The emergency brake fix and rear brakes will run me $475! $72 for each rear brake cable. This was not an expense I was expecting. So we'll see if the throttle body replacement will fix the idle and the hesitation upon acceleration. I forgot the to bring the list of all the advice and tips. But I owe the mechanic a deposit on the used throttle body so I'll show it to him then and see what he thinks.

400 for this 400 for that. Yeah sounds like mechanic prices. Comes to a thousand real quick before you know it. I recommend getting a haynes repair manual and fix it yourself. To many people live and die by mechanics these days.

Is this the Jiffy Lube guy? Maybe try checking with a real Honda mechanic.

Its always good to get second opinions as well. Call up a junk yard ask them what mechanic they would use. Their might even be somebody at the junk yard who might try fixing it for ya. Just throwing out past experience things that have done well for me. I would stay away from any tire name repair shops. Also dont let the guy at Jiffy lube repair it for yeah. If these guys where good at fixing things they would be a mechanic.

The rear hand brake cables on a civic vx cost $46 for one side, and $38 for the other side, the highest priced brake shoes you can get for the vx are $38 for a set, about a year ago I was quited $50 to replace one hand brake cable on my crx hf, it's a slightly shorter cable, but a simaler lay out at the vx, it required me to remove the wheel, brake drum and brake pads of the side that I was replacing the cable and took me about and hour and a half, and it wouldn't have taken any extra time to replace the brake shoes at the same time as I had to remove them to replace the cable, and I think the only tools I needed were a jack, a lug wrench, a pair of pliers and a 12mm wrench.
My mechanic charges around $50 an hour, so even if yours charged $100 an hour and was as slow as I was the total still should have come to less then $425 with the highest quality parts I could find.
I agree compleatly with staying away from the jiffylube kid, I learned how to change oil when I was 15 years old from a girl who didn't want to get her hands dirty, and after spending countless hours working on cars and reading repair manuals I still change oil the exact same way as when I was 15.

Rest assured I know better than to let the Jiffy Lube guys do actual mechanic work on my vehicle. It's a local mechanic near my house. My cousin goes to him and she has a Honda so I figured what the hell. He seems like a nice guy but he is very busy and it's hard to get an appointment with him (I saw this as a positive sign, but $475 does seem expensive!) I might have my non Jiffy Lube friend who claims to have recently learned how to do the brakes (he's changed them twice now, although I think he learned from the jiffy lube friend!) But I think I'll still let the mechanic do the e-brake. As far as part prices, I think the throttle body was $80 from the junkyard because that's how much of a deposit he wanted and said the total for installing it with the price of the part would be $140 (leads me to believe he charges $60 an hour which is pretty normal for the mechanics around here)

The only thing I perhaps would say might be to his disadvantage is he is young so not as experienced as some of the older mechanics. I'd say only a few years older than me and I'm 27. I think he got his shop maybe a year ago.

Based on your math Ryland I should be paying for the rear brakes and e-brake about: $250. The drums and the shoes need to be replaced. Everything on the back brakes he said needed to be replaced--very rusty and didn't look like they'd ever been done or at least not in a very long time.

Once the ebrake gets fixed it will be safer for me to work on my car. The same friend who might do the brakes on my car didn't put the ebrake on while jacking up his g/f's car and because the car rocks back and forth a little while its in gear it rocked off the jack before my friend had finished putting the wheel back on. I'd like to do some work on the car myself, but a little wary.... I'll look into getting a Haynes manual tho.

Just changed the spark plugs!
 

I just put in the proper spark plugs (V-Power) with the part number corresponding to what is recommended for this car written on the hood and it has made a huge difference! I barely notice the hesitation now at all when accelerating and it doesn't lose power, gain power, while cruising. I've driven 25 miles to test it. So wondering if that fixed the problem. Is any sort of hesitation normal with this engine? It doesn't seem to lag anymore, but the power delivery still isn't quite 100% uniform, but it's pretty darn close. Putting in the right spark plugs really made a difference! A whopping $10 fix. hahaha. Good times. :thumbup: :D

Congrats on getting the right plugs in there. There still will be some noticeable switching between lean burn and regular and VTECE mode, but this is normal. I can barely tell when my VX switches between those modes now, and I know what to feel for, lol.

Okay, great! I think it is working properly now. Will get the rattle fixed, and having the throttle body replaced, so hopefully that will fix the sticky idle. After those things, car should be purring like a kitten. I still haven't done all the other little tweaks, like cleaning the IACV. I prolly should have the timing belt changed as well as its been at least 30,000 miles since it has been, and probably a lot more than that. Expensive tho. maybe I will do the valve adjustment if I do. I read on another VX forum that it's something that should be done every 15,000 miles. "VX and CX engines are both finely tuned engines and require valve adjustments every 15,000 miles I believe."

From the same forum: "the varying throttle in my experience is the o2 sensor, but going thru and doing a tune up might make it go away as well, make sure your EGR valve is working properly too, as I was told by the dealer mechanic that if that is not working right that it can sometimes have the same effect. To check that simply pull the vaccum hose off the EGR valve and plug it with a pencil."

Anyway, great little car. Very happy with it so far.