Honda Repair: 1988 Honda CRX Throttle Sensor, 1988 honda crx, honda crx

Question
My check engine light just came on and we took my car in to have it checked.  I was told that the Throttle Sensor was bad and that normally this was an inexpensive repair but on my car the entire throttle body had to be replaced because the sensor is welded to the body and the repair would cost over $600.00.  While I am sure we weren't lied to, at this time I just don't have that kind of money.  The repairman said that I could drive it without repairing it but it would probably run rough.  Is all this correct?  Is there anything cheaper we could do to fix this?  The repair guy also said that getting a used throttle body for this year car would probably be a waste of our time and money also.  How hard is it to put a throttle body in?  Could a person with very little mechanic experience do it?

Thanks for any help you can offer.

Denise

Answer
Your mechanic is correct in telling you that the throttle body has to be replaced because the TPS sensor is a part of the throttle body. I don't think the engine will run rough at all because all this sensor does is tell the onboard computer the opening or closing degree of the trottle valve, ie, how far you are stepping on the gas pedal. My experience has been that these engine when they have this problem is the tend to idle real high but eventually come down to normal idle. This is (or was) a fairly common problem for this engine. You can try to get a used one, but you are basically taking a junk part off your engine & replacing it with another junk part. I wouldn't recommend trying this yourself if you have little mechanic aptitude.