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Listen and feel for weird noises. Crickets are normal; tapping coming from a valve cover is not.
Put it in 5th when you would normally go to 2nd, feed it throttle, and see if the RPM rises without the car moving accordingly. Make sure the previous owner didn't abuse the clutch excessively. Shift smoothly with little to medium pressure on the stick and see if you feel grinding in the transmission. 1st to 2nd is usually a little sticky, so don't base your judgement on that alone.
Drive over a bumpy road and listen for the suspension to click or creak. Look at obvious bolt heads in the engine bay (top hats, strut bars, etc...) and see if they've been wrenched on.
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