I had my first scary (to me at least) incident yesterday and have been talking to instructors and other techs I know to try to debrief and learn from it, and thought I would put it out here to continue to try to learn from it and find any areas where judgement or airmanship could have been better. For a little background on myself I have been an active A&P since 2007 (the first 9 years GA, the rest Gulfstreams), and have approximately 175 hours logged, with about 115 of them in this Cessna 152).

-Aircraft was AOG over the weekend hard/unable to start.  Left the aircraft there over the weekend and the shop on the field adjusted the idle/mixture and cleaned the plugs. We were 4hrs from home, so it wasnt the time or place to troubleshoot and work on the aircraft myself due to lack of tools/parts.

-Preflight checks, runup, departure and cruise all uneventful and all temps, pressures, and performance completely normal. Conditions at cruise 4500' were 8-10*c, no visible moisture and 10 vis.

-1h40m into the flight the engine started fluctuating RPM's from cruise 2300 RPM to about 2000/2100 RPM with an audible sputtering noise associated with it and a feeling like the engine was surging and dropping power.

-I grabbed my emergency checklist and performed loss of power in flight checklist.

Mags checked good

Fuel in both tanks, mixture full rich

Carb heat applied, engine resumed normal and stable operation

-After approximately 5/10 minutes I turned off carb heat to see if that remedied the situation and the erratic operation began again with a vengeance (RPM fluctuations, audible power change, no vibrations still running smoothly as if i was just messing with the throttle) so I turned the carb heat back on and the engine regained stability, and left it that way for the remainder of the flight.

-I was in a weird location with no airports within gliding distance, and not a lot of great off-airport options so I decided to "do no harm" and remained in the carb heat on, full rich, 2300 rpm configuration for the remaining 20 miles to the destination.

-I stayed at 4500 until I knew I would make the field and descended with a bit of speed, but slowed normally, performed a normal landing, and the engine didn't hiccup and never quit.

-I was on flight following and did not declare an emergency or notify approach, as I was making power, maintaining speed and altitude, I decided that they could not really do anything for me at that point, and if I needed to make an emergency landing I already was on a discrete xpdr code, and at 4500' would have a significant amount of time to make my emergency call.

At 177 hours total time, I realize I know just enough to know how much I dont actually know, and would appreciate any feedback from an aviation decision making and airmanship perspective from more experienced aviators. I will be thoroughly examining and troubleshooting the engine for any discrepancies and will not be flying it again until I have discovered and repaired any faults found, so I only really want to focus on the flying aspect of all of this for now as my confidence is pretty well shaken up. Thanks.