I had the engine mounts replaced on my '98 Civic. When the shop was done, they said the CEL was on. They got the code and said it was because of the Intake Air Temperature Sensor (I think) which they had to unplug for some reason while doing the mounts. They plugged it back in, reset the CEL and drove the car and said that everything seemed fine.

While I was driving home, I came to a red light and stopped. Immediately I knew something wasn't right. I looked down and the car was idling almost at zero. I kept one foot on the brake and the other on the gas so it wouldn't stall. Hoping it was a fluke, I kept on driving and every time I stopped this happened. I got home, disconnected the battery, reconnected it, then turned the car on and let it idle for 15 minutes and drove it after and everything seemed fine.

Is this something to worry about? I'll have to see how it runs the next couple of days.

 

did it fall to 0 then try to even itself out or did it sit there?

 

No it just sat there and it was barely above zero. When the car was moving, it felt and sounded fine.

I drove it about 20 miles or so today and I made note of the RPM's every time I stopped. The idle was around 300RPM's which is actually not far off from where it usually is.

 

After disconnecting the battery the ECU needs to recalibrate the idle. It sounds like that's what happened and it's OK now.

 

^+1 -- this is very common and normal.

 

Alright, I figured it reset the idle and that's why it seems fine now. I just wanted to make sure it wasn't anything that I should keep an eye on.

On a side note, it feels nice to take a car this old with close to 180,000 miles on it and have it only need ONE windshield wiper in order to pass inspection