Well, more joy.....
I went over to the Honda dealer to see if maybe the P0132 code might be caused by a dirty air filter because I saw something online about it showing a rich condition. Well, I mentioned it to the parts guy and right away he came back with "yep, we're seeing alot of those codes too. Most likely its a cracked exhaust manifold." I said, "great, and that has the cat attached to it too doesn't it?!". He says, "yep, that beauty will run you about $750 CDN to replace". He went on to tell me that it was so common in the northeast (due to salt corrosion and the large amount of expansion and contraction on exhaust parts) that aftermarket places like Carquest have started to stock them because they do crack so often.
After he told me the exhaust manifold is the typical cause, I thought for a second and then it all started making sense. The P0132 code translates into O2 Sensor Circuit High Voltage (Bank 1 Sensor 1) which means the O2 sensor is seeing a higher than normal voltage. Ok, fine so what does that mean? Well, a high voltage on an O2 sensor means that the sensor is seeing a rich condition but it could be swinging either way (ie rich or lean) because the O2 sensor could be trying to compensate for air entering the exhaust stream (ie compensating for a false lean condition). I would expect to see more P0131 (lean) than P0132 (rich) with a crack like that allowing air to enter the exhaust, but I'll never rule it out until I verify what it is not. So I'll have to pull my exhaust manifold to look and see if there is indeed an issue with mine that needs replacing and if it does, I may try welding it first (depends how bad the crack is). Too bad Honda has such a horrible design where they combined it with the converter and they cost you an arm and your first born for a new one. The parts guy over at Honda said to plan on buying a new one about every 4-5 years up here......I said I'm not worried because I won't be owning this POS by then anyway.
Hondas are great cars, but they really suck if you live in a place that has corrosive winters!
In contrast, my 4runner seems to be bulletproof with whatever I throw at it! :great:
Here's the TSB for P0131 .....
TSB #03076 -- MALFUNCTION INDICATOR LAMP COMES ON WITH DIAGNOSTIC TROUBLE CODE P0131 (PRIMARY HEATED OXYGEN SENSOR CIRCUIT LOW VOLTAGE) OR POOR ENGINE PERFORMANCE. *TT (NHTSA ID #10004797, OCTOBER 14 2003)
Just in case you think I'm making this all up.....
http://www.freewebs.com/hondacanadasucks/
The crack falls exactly where you'd expect because there's a gap in the heatshield (see the large uncovered triangle shaped area on the #3 heat shield below) right there and that lets water come up and splash directly on the very hot exhaust manifold causing stress cracks from the large temp gradient that creates (I think it's just a bit too thin walled to withstand the temp shock).
Here's the 1.7L exhaust manifold and heat shield (see attached pic)