What kind of mess has a P.O. left for you?

[nisreo]

hah, where should I start?

* transmission bolted loosely to the motor with one bolt ) about 1/2 inch gap between)

* 1 speaker left in the car
* crank no start from bad ecu fusible link
* side exit exhaust that went under the axle and leaking badly
* Oik pan leaking a quart a week
*seized smog pump
* blown headgaskets
* horrible paintjob with more bondo than you can buy at BJ's
* most interior screw holes stripped out
*bald tires
*no brakes
* rotted tranny crossmember
* P.S leak
* squishy oil soaked motor mounts
* frozen hvac head cable
* T-5 that pops out of 1st, 2nd, grinds 3rd and sometimes wont go into 5th. 4th is mint though! hah
and so on and so on. Good think I only paid a grand for the car. Most of its fixed now with the exception of some of the more time consuming jobs

 

[Mustang5L5]

I bought both my Mustangs 100% stock from a 45-year old woman ('03 GT) and a 65-year old woman ('88 LX 5.0)....

No issues at all because they never touched them

 

[ill advised]

Fortunately, every 5.0 I've owned (4 total) I found in great condition. Aside from my '90, all were stock with mileage that ranged from 33,000 to 87,000. The 90 had a K&N, Flowmasters (stock headers/h-pipe), subframes, strut brace and koni springs and was in excellent condition. My '92 had mudflaps but that is about the only complaint I have. Frankly, I don't blame the previous owner because on a white car all that dirt and grime is much more noticeable.

 

[glowstang93]

one owner car anyone??? mwahhaha still one owner. always will be, but not technically b/c it is about to be switched to my name. I know everything that has/was/will be done to my car!!

Yep, mine is a one owner, and will probably always be a one owner stang.

 

[hemi_fan]

Chevy valve keepers?!? One popped out and the valve almost dropped into the cylinder! Luckily the rocker smashed the keeper onto the valve preventing it from falling all the way into the engine.

 

[Darkwriter77]

Almost every car I've ever bought has had a complete frickin' moron for a P.O., so I'll just stick with my latest acquisition: my '86 GMC S-15, "Stinky." Major gripes are as follows:

1. ALL radio components except speakers removed, wiring harness clipped off all the way as far back as one could reach into the radio bay, and even the antenna was removed;
2. Not 100% certain, but pretty sure he put in gear fluid instead of ATF when he did the tranny fluid drain/fill on the manual tranny - it's a T-5, same as what's in a Fox Mustang (different bell, input shaft, and tail, of course), so it uses the same stuff. Doesn't shift smooth until it warms up, feels like I'm rowing the gears through friggin' molases;
3. The guy was a painter by trade, so what'd he do when he needed a paintjob for the truck? HE SPRAYED THE WHOLE THING WITH LATEX HOUSE PAINT!
4. Half of the interior and the hood were swapped from a '91 model, and in doing so, it was slapped together half-assed. A funky mix of gray and brown and tan and blue panels in the interior, temperature blend door control cable wasn't connected properly (fixed last week), missing screws everywhere, diverter door to go from Vent to Bi-Level to Heat to Defrost only offers two modes - Bi-Level and Heat & Defrost, etc.;
5. Guy gave me a brand new full-sized spare TIRE ... but no rim. There's no mounting hardware to put the rim under the bed, so it's taking up half the space of my extended cab area;
6. The rear sliding window rattles (as they all do), so the guy's fix? He frickin' taped it shut with masking tape. The tape, of course, disintegrated and crumbled, and now the leftover adhesive is almost as bad as duct tape;
7. More on the paint issue, there's dried PILES of drywall, paint, and who-knows-what back there in the bed I've gotta literally chisel out before I can really sand the thing down to roll some bedliner on it;
8. The dude was a MAJOR chain-smoker, so the interior REEKS of stale cigarettes. Replacing the seats, vacuuming the hell out of the carpet, scrubbing everything down with Purple Power, and tossing in a "New Car Smell" hockey puck helped a bit, but it's still there, and always will be ... hence the truck's name.

 

[tamadrummer88]

i traded my old 98 GT for my fox. Guy was in the military, and was deploying to iraq. So he was in a rush to sell it. heres some stuff:

-Stereo deck was loosely installed. It would literally wiggle out of its hole over time and then drop onto the shifter.

-Hacked up a perfectly good BBK CAI to make it into a short ram intake.

-Supposedly he did some work to the alternator and smog pump. When he put it back, he literally left it LOOSE. How did i know? one day, the belt started squealing . When i opened up the hood, the alt and smog pump was HANGING ON THE BELT. broke a bolt off the head.

-stock catback was JB welded together and used a flex pipe. Damn thing would rattle everytime.

-balding tires

-brake rotors warped.

-rear shock dead.

-rack needed to be replaced. Fluid was BLACK.

some stuff, most fixed. but it was irritating.

 

[90blacknight]

I found a rat's nest in the back seat! The previous owner must have known about it. He said he had had the car professionally detailed when I pick it up, but all they did was try to mask the urine smell with a ton of air freshner and vacuumed only the visible parts of the carpet. When I pulled the seats there were tons of rat droppings. The nest was behind the back rest for the rear seats. The rats had dug out a hole in it and settled in there. Luckily they were long gone by the time I got the car. You'd think the guy would at least throw the back rest out! Disgusting! I'm beginning to believe it's why he sold the car. I had the pull out the whole interior and do a thorough wash but now it smells as good as new!

 

[BadMoFo]

just picked up an 89 coupe yesterday and so far these are a few things.

no door trim on passenger side

no stereo EVERYTHING is gone, head unit and all speakers. wires hanging out everywhere.

ds long tubes are missing back to bolts

partially plumbed nitrous. the nitrous is no longer there but some of the plumbing is.

fuel pres guage not hooked up

all guages run off toggle switch you have to turn off and on instead of running all the time.

bald tires all the way around

tank was below E

missing some interior trim pieces

interior lights dont work

 

[KAILUAZ]

My PO never cleaned out the cowl :

 

[carbed87]

I just did an intake swap for a friend on a car he recently bought sight unseen from a dealer in Chicago. It was billed as "mechanically excellent" and "doesn't leak a drop of oil". Well, both were lies. The coolant came out black, there was no thermostat in it and there was oil on the radiator cap. You guessed it: it has a bad head gasket.

Oh, and it leaks oil very nicely, thank you.

that car wouldn't happen to be a black 86 notch would it

 

[ttop88]

I would have never expected rust like that on the Islands.

 

[ill advised]

Holy hell. Where'd they find that car? At the bottom of Pearl Harbor? lol

 

[KAILUAZ]

You would think, its a Florida car. The PO knew it was rotten as he put some expanding foam in the cowl to attempt to keep the water out
View attachment 321761

 

[nami matsushima]

my main complaint was how the p.o. pigtailed in the booster fuel pump with the in tank pump wiring....my car sometimes had full throttle hiccups and I later found out the wiring was corrodded to hell....but luckily, that's all behind me now!!!

 

[nami matsushima]

one more.....I once bought a 93 four banger lx for fifty bucks...I had to hotwire it to get her going...but the most ghetto thing about it was how the guy was like "man when you buy this car, I'll throw in these visegrips for window handles free!!" Needless to say that sold me on it...after stripping the car I was given $100 bucks to get it crushed....Well, somehow this redneck fool ended up with it, put a f-150 engine in it and proceded to tell me..."boy, you don't want to mess with me, I'm putting 377 to the wheels" ....later that night he raced a stock 4.8 chevrolet truck and lost by atleast 15 lengths...that car is infamous in our town...hands down it is the only vehicle for hundreds of miles around that can literally smoke up WHOLE parking lots...like a whole minute after he left I could really see his car giving smoke signals from the sky above...