Yeah, in one place I can see a steel plate (on the corner, not necessarily near the crack or anything). It was indeed a portal before the 90’s, with a door further up (but not on this wall). This is also a worry of mine, that it might not be structurally sound anymore. It’s possible that years of slow water intrusion has affected the porch internally, at the rebar level, however I have seen no other signs of failure (although, like you, am just a normal person that doesn’t know much about this stuff). I would not be able to afford replacing the concrete porch, I have a feeling.
Also, I did have two contractors take a look while they were here for other reasons, and both of them said to support it just in case, but otherwise didn’t seem too concerned.
In the meantime, I’ve reached out to a few more structural engineers to get quotes from them to come take a look.
Absolutely, I’ll have a structural engineer tell me what to do at the very least, and if not too expensive and I can afford it, have them do it.
I unfortunately don’t think the sellers I bought it from knew about it either. It seems that the attempted “repair” was in 2017, when the seller they bought it from still owned the house. So I don’t think I have much recourse there.