How to tell if a car has been tuned by prior owner?

[2Cool]

Bottom line up front: prior owned car, obvious previous mods and returned to stock, need to know if it was tuned before. Previous owner needs tools taken away and a slap or twelve.

Long version:
Bought my '24 Performance from Carvana with 9200 miles on it. Since then I have determined that it had been modded and then hastily returned to stock by someone of limited skills and apparently limited hardware for trade in. Exhaust hangers and connectors with missing and mismatched bolts. Front strut top nuts loose or missing completely. Rear suspension eccentric bolts finger tight. So obviously springs and cat back at least.

Today I am swapping the lower downpipes. Expected the normal super tight upper nuts accessed from up top. Nope, one stud had a small bolt replacing it, the driver side had a wrong thread nut that was literally 1" up the stud away from being tight. From below I notice missing hanger bracket bolts. Mismatched downpipe to midpipe hardware, but at least there were gaskets.

There were no gaskets on either lower downpipe to cat connector. Add in the driver side having only one tight bolt and it has been leaking badly. When I took them off the O2's were easy to remove, since they were finger tight at best.

No codes though, which should have happened for catalyst efficiency with the massive leak and loose O2s. So I wonder if the prior idiot also had a tune that at the very least disabled the rear O2s. If I can find out if it was previously tuned I would ditch my Stillen Trucontrol and get it properly tuned, as the only reason I am using it is warranty, which likely is already a moot point.

 

[msquared94]

That sucks, good luck whatever direction you go.

 

[ZillaZ]

Bummer.

Test drive + inspection for all usef car purchases.

I am guilty of not doing this too though. A 2001 Corvette I got ran a little "off". Not bad, but just seemed s bit off. It was a good price so I bought it anyways. Found out someone really messed with the ECM and I had a dealer put it back to factory and go through it to make sure nothing else was off.

After that it ran 100x better. No idea with that tune the previous owner was trying to accomplish.

 

[VR30Infection]

That sucks. I hope you are able to get it all sorted out.

 

[Zplz]

Bummer.

Test drive + inspection for all usef car purchases.

I am guilty of not doing this too though. A 2001 Corvette I got ran a little "off". Not bad, but just seemed s bit off. It was a good price so I bought it anyways. Found out someone really messed with the ECM and I had a dealer put it back to factory and go through it to make sure nothing else was off.

After that it ran 100x better. No idea with that tune the previous owner was trying to accomplish.

Heh, heh... that's always a risk with being used. My father used to call it "buying someone else's problems."

 

[5amp5on]

That's really crappy for someone to put a car back together like that just to dump it.

I could not sleep passing that kind of burden onto another person.

 

[Tranzor Z]

That's complete disrespect to a car. I would never do that and when I traded my 2018 coyote I left it with what I put on out of respect for the car and it's new owner.

Good luck to you. I know you'll make it right.

 

[ZillaZ]

Heh, heh... that's always a risk with being used. My father used to call it "buying someone else's problems."

Honestly its half the reason I have a Z. I wanted a C7 Vette I started looking in early 2023 and C7's stopped production in 2019 so I had to get used.
Just could not find a good one that didn't have something "wrong" with it. So I started looking at new and I always liked the Z. Got mine in early 2024.

 

[papozalsa]

Carvana gives you 30 days for return. I know is a hassle but at the end it probably would be better than to get on a car that might have issues down the road. I did that with Carmax on 2 vehicles and got a piece of mind.