P1519 code

[Red5]

This morning when I fired up the 03 it was hard to start. Took several seconds of cranking. It's never done that before. When it did start the check engine light came on and the idle was surging badly. I drove it a couple of miles and it drove fine, but the idle kept surging. I turned off the engine and waited a few seconds and then restarted it. It idled fine.

I took it down to Checker and had the code read.

P1519 Idle Air Control Valve Circuit Failure

They cleared the check engine light and it has not happeded again in several start/stop cycles.

Is the idle air control valve prone to failure? I'm thinking that it was just a temporary bad contact on the connector.

[repiv]

It seems you had a "temporary" condition since the code doesn't come back after resetting. It may have just been a bad connection at the IAC mechanism. This is that strange looking thing on the driver's side of the intake manifold where those "U" shaped coolant lines run in and out of. There is also a wiring harness that plugs into it. The connections inside that harness may be a bit corroded. When you have some time, unclip the harness and try to clean the contacts a bit and snap it back on securely. Hopefully, that's all it is.

[dhayner]

This happened to my '01 three times, each separated by a couple of months. Before resetting the second time, I cleaned the IACV. Before resetting the third time, I replaced the IACV. $116+ at Majestic, easy to install.

[Red5]

Well... It happened again this morning. I had not "gotten around" to cleaning the connector, so I popped it off and checked it out and cleaned it as best I could.

Then I reset the computer and the engine light has not come back so far.

I hope I don't have to replace the valve. But I do have my smog check coming in Jan so I need the car to be code free.

[Red5]

Damn! Happened again this morning. I guess I need to check my extended warranty to see if the deductible is higher than the price of the part.

Funny thing though... After driving about 30 miles on combined highway and city driving the engine light turned off. I thought it would take longer than that to self-reset.

[Red5]

Since the engine light hasn't come on since Saturday I decided to take it in for smog testing. The P1519 code did show up on the printout, but they didn't say anything about it and it passed.

If the code shows up again I'll replace the valve.

[Red5]

OK I finally gave up and had the valve replaced. Honda Care picked up the bill.

[repiv]

So, does the new part fix the problem?

[Red5]

So far so good. The problem had gotten so bad that it was surging constantly. Now it idles like it should.

When I called the dealership to find out if they had a valve in stock the service "advisor" told me that those almost never go bad and it was probably the maf sensor. I knew better but I didn't argue with him. Of course it was the iacv (which is exactly what the code said it was).

[repiv]

Yet another example of a clueless service dept. I noted the very first one of these bad IAC solenoids back in 2001. They may not go bad very often but they do go bad and the service guy should have taken the hint from the DTC. He was not very smart to ignore that. Also, if he talked about a MAF (mass air flow) sensor, then he's doubly ignorant. We don't have one. We've got a MAP sensor (Manifold absolute pressure).
Well, at least you didn't have to pay for it.