Hi Mark,
Regarding the TSB...
I received a (belated) notice of it in the mail and brought it to my dealership to ask about. The service guy looked it up on their computer so I think they should be able to tell whether your car's VIN falls under the TSB from looking it up that way. I think you're correct that the punch hole would be located on the VIN that you see up against the firewall.

*edit: I took a look at the firewall VIN on my car, and saw no punch hole. I think there's another VIN marker under the "Integrated IMA Assist" cover of the engine. Maybe it's marked there, but I didn't take the cover off to look.

(I was reading the TSB again, and something else to remember is that if they do find that your car falls under that TSB, it says on the second page that if you paid for a catalytic converter replacement in the past, you might be eligible for a reimbursement. Wishful thinking, but something to keep in mind.)

 

Thanks for the feedback. I took it into the dealer again and this time the mechanic said that the IAMA computer had malfunctioned and was defective. It needed replacing, and because it had been working the battery too much, it needed replacing.

He quoted me $3,000 for the computer and $7,000 for the battery! Which seems really high - usually the quoted price for a battery replace is $3,000. Fortunately, it's an `03 and Honda covered in under warranty (8 year on the batter/iama). Even though we bought it second hand - they still covered it.

I've been driving it again for a week now. Even in Twin cities rush hour traffic it's running better. My MPG is up 5 mpg to about 40 currently.

Turns out the first mechanic either didn't know what she was talking about, or didn't care enough to dig deeper. Either way, I'm pretty happy with Honda these days

 

Did you ever sell the Honda? And if so how much you get for it?

 

We did sell the honda a few years ago to a Honda Dealer. It had a big ding in the side where my wife banged into another car while doing a 90 degree back in, which drove the value down of the car quite a bit. I think we got about $2000 in trade in value.