what do you consider tuning a car?

Question

is just the maintenance and the keeping the car running or is engine mods and custom work

Answer 1

Change spark-plugs, filters and oil/transmission fluid. Check belts, fluid levels, air.

Answer 2

The answer depends on when and where you live. In the US before the mid-1990s, "tuning" meant maintenance -- cars built before then tended to have a large number of mechanical (rather than electronic) controls, which needed regular adjustment. These adjustments were called "tune-ups," the analogy being to making adjustments to a musical instrument to make it sound its best. Since the advent of OBD-II engine controls, this definition of "the tune-up" has largely faded from common use, because virtually all of the functions, once controlled by mechanical devices which needed constant adjustment, have been taken over by electronics, which monitor whether the devices controlling those functions are operating correctly.

In Europe, on the other hand, "tuning" a car tended to mean making modifications for power as early as the 1930s, but even more so in the 1950s. (The US equivalent in the '50s would have been "hot rodding".) Enthusiasts for motorsport in Europe would have considered tuning to be changing components on the engine, uprating suspension pieces, and improving the brakes, most likely with an eye toward competition, either circuit racing or road rallying.

Since the mid-1990s, the European concept of "tuning" -- modification for performance -- has been taken over in the US by performance-minded owners of Japanese cars; with hundreds of thousands of these vehicles on the roads, it has become a huge market, with probably thousands of vendors offering performance-oriented parts. These vendors, by and large, are called "tuners."

The concept is slightly different in Europe, where "tuners" tend to mean people like Alois Ruf, who modifies Porsches to get insane levels of power and speed out of them, or firms like AMG who do the same to Mercedes. So if you're on the east side of the Atlantic Ocean, a "tuner car" is an expensive performance car, probably German, that's had a significant fraction (if not a multiple!) of its purchase price spent on making it go exceedingly quickly.

On the west side of the Atlantic, a "tuner car" most likely means a small to mid-sized Japanese import with bolt-on modifications to the exhaust, suspension, and intake, and possibly body as well. Because of the size of the "tuning" market in the US, the quality and effectiveness of the parts varies greatly. Some manufacturers make legitimate performance pieces that add to the power, control and safety of a car to be used in competition; some manufacturers make money by selling crap to the ignorant.

The irony is that "tuning" in its performance sense originally came from the understanding that making all the components of a vehicle work as a system made the vehicle perform more efficiently, or with greater performance (which in some ways is the same thing -- getting more work out of the same package). So as computerized controls become commonplace, we're beginning to see "tuners" in the European sense cropping up in the US market -- individuals and shops that not only install modifications, but that also refine the car's existing systems to make sure all those modifications work together most effectively.

Answer 3

i doubt you mean tune up, which is essentially a thing of the past, but if you did, it would be plugs, and wires, maybe an airfilter and oil change....

you probably mean "tuning" like the fast and the furious.
That is a lame concept. It usually means putting a big ol coffe can muffler on the car, lowering it and putting on low profile rims and tires, and a "cold air" intake. You could also put a picnic table rear wind on it. Dont forget neon underneath the car, and "carbon fiber" everywhere on the inside, including the shift knob.

Answer 4

keeping a proper tune is chaging the plugs, oil, filters and such. performance mods would be custom parts and accessories

Answer 5

DEPENDING ON THE CAR AND THE YEAR OF THE CAR DEPENDS ON WHAT IT NEEDS BUT IN MOST CASES THE TUNE UP CONSISTS OF SPARK PLUGS WIRES CAP AND ROTOR BUTTON AIR FILTER AND FUEL FILTER PCV VALVE.;