Hi all,


I'm new to the forum and excited to finally be able to look into to buying one of my all time dream cars. I'm a home mechanic and most of my experience comes from working on BMWs. There is a X in town that I got to check out yesterday and so much of it looks really promising, while other aspects are very weird, so I wanted to pick y'all's brains on it if you'll let me.


The car is currently for sale from a second hand dealership (you know the kind), its a 2014 in rally red @ 75k miles without sight & sound, only two owners. Right now, it's not drivable because the slave cylinder went out (empty reservoir, zero clutch pedal). The dealer is going to get the repair done before they sell it to anyone and I got the name of the shop they will use to do it, but meanwhile me and a buddy who owned a X a while back were able to check it out in person at their warehouse. The car has clearly been sitting for a while, and the dealer insists it ran and drove great when they first acquired it. This X starts and idles perfectly, no squeaks, rattles, etc., belts look good and pulleys are still plastic but are running just fine. Only visible modification on the whole car is an aluminum charge pipe from the intercooler to the turbo, everything else in the engine bay is bone stock. Interior is also bone stock except the previous owner had it wired up for an aftermarket sub and amp, but no trace of a cobb, no A pillar gauges, stock head unit, even the stock shift knob! Exterior is stock as well with the factory wheels, ride height and lights, no holes drilled in any body panels, no rock chips on the rockers, and the only misaligned body panel is the very rear end of the driver side rocker (not sure if this is a common issue). I could only see so much of the underside, but the CV boots/axels are clean, dry and intact, and the bushings look pretty normal for the mileage, I would probably replace them anyway. No visible leaks from the rear diff but the belly pan kept me from getting a good look at the bell housing/tcase/front diff. The dealer purchased the car directly from the previous owner, a 40-something guy who was selling it to buy a hybrid, just the kind of guy you want to buy a sporty car from.


So on to the funky parts. Apparently the car has a stage 3 clutch in it. When we first heard that we were sure it was beat on, but looking at the engine and body panels it looks pretty babied. My guess is that a previous owner had to replace the clutch at some point and just got the stage 3 because more stages equals more better, as it doesn't seem to fit the rest of the story the car is telling. Also, when they bought the car there was a square hole punched clean out of the rear quarter right in front of the tail light assembly. Nobody has any idea how this happened. They got it repaired at a good shop in town and I am going to call them today to see if I can get more info on it, will try to post some before/afters, but the patch job looks perfect and you cant tell anything ever happened from the outside. My theory is some bro-dozer backed into it at some point and cleaned that piece out with its hitch, but I'm still a bit suspicious. The carfax shows clean history with no accidents, but also only has one dealer service logged at 57k miles when the first owner sold it; no open recalls. It doesn't come with any service records but I got the dealer to agree to call up the last owner and try to get more info on the cars history. Fuel pump relay is black which AFAIK means that fix was never performed on this car so I am hoping it hasn't been running lean this whole time. Also, I was unable to tell if the AYC pump was replaced.


Once the dealer fixes the clutch, I am having them send it for a PPI at the mitsu dealer. If they say it looks alright my buddy is going to test drive it (I live out of town) to look for tcase whine and shifter feel. Right now I am compelled to go in on it as its priced nicely below other examples on autotrader with 130k+ miles and tons of ricer mods, but I would really love to hear any feedback from the community behind these cars because I can't quite figure out the story behind this one. Some parts look really nice, and others are a little suspicious, I dunno. Sorry for the long winded summary, and thanks for reading!

 

Hard to tell what the car has been through without a PPI. Good to see you're getting one done. Seen a lot of guys on here buy an Evo without getting it inspected, then having major problems shortly after getting the car. What we do see a lot is someone modifying the car, then putting it back to stock before selling it.

 

I suspect that might be the case. I tried looking for signs of returning to stock but the whole engine bay had a pretty even layer of dust/dirt so nothing obvious. Assuming the car had been tuned previously, anything in particular I should have the PPI look for? Definitely going to make sure they do compression and leakdown along with the usual inspection points

 

I can't think of anything other than the compression and leakdown test. I'm sure if you put some pictures of the engine bay on here, a few people would be able to tell if it was put back to stock.

 

Taking JDZNate's advice, I managed to get some engine bay pics from the dealer. Note the charge pipe I mentioned above, otherwise it looks pretty stock. Hopefully someone might be able to pick out any history with this car! They have ordered the slave cylinder from the mitsu dealership and expect to have it in early February (seems like a long time, but whatever). Here are the pictures. Thanks again!