Good evening! I recently purchased a 2002 Zr2 in a parking lot for $1500. My last 2003 2 door 2WD I had for 120,000+ miles/5 years (80k at purchase) so I know some of the common issues and have some mechanical experience with them. There are few things going on with this one I haven't encountered in the past though so I thought I'd post up asking for advice. I'd like to go ahead and list all the issues I've found but will mark the ones I am familiar with so I'm wasting less of people's valuable time. So, here we go...

I'll start with stuff I know about
The stupid actuator on the rear glass... pain in the ***
Driver door pins...

hmm. for some reason I thought it was more... I'm useless. So let's move on to what I "have an idea but would like a second opinion"
Gauges don't work. None, not RPM, speed, fuel, volts, oil pressure, temp... - also it has the overhead info assuming compass and temp - does not work - map lights do not work and there is a toggle switch for a built in LED - wtf (sunroof works WOOT!)
Aftermarket radio with no bezel - doesn't seem to turn on but haven't pushed any buttons
Steering wheel is sideways! They screwed with the torsion bars/keys whatever it is to raise the truck in the front (not sure if this is related) - ****ing kids
uh... okay they did a flowmaster 40 with turndowns. I'm going to admit I tried this **** getting a blazer to sound good because my buddy had a v6 F150 that sounded great at idle and through most of the RPM range... I couldn't duplicate the awesomeness trying several different series of Flowmaster - Midas also promised dual exhaust - 2 DOOR - let them do it - was never right - exhaust banging on the axle on speed bumps - eventually did turn downs - still think it was stupid and would prefer factory exhaust... it's a v6.
It has a hard time staying running on cold start and smokes - white smoke when cold outside... I didn't notice it smoking on the drive home when we bought it and it wasn't started for days when it was smoking
There is a parasitic drain on the battery - goes dead after a night - can hear a whine when turned off - ignition key will not go to "lock" or "accessory" only "off".
4wd does not engage - flashes and goes back to 2wd - can hear a noise when button is pressed

Oil looks good. Coolant overflow seems to stay full. We drove it home 100 miles that evening (and ran out of gas in the middle of nowhere at 12AM because as I said the gauges don't work and there wasn't a gas station in between where we got it and home within the distance open past 11pm)

body is decent I guess - they removed the roof rack and the spare tire carrier - why I have no clue... stupid kids

Any advice is great - just need a simple drive back and forth 5 miles to work 5 days a week but would like to have a zr2 to enjoy

Thank you

 

No idea. Probably start fishing around in the fusebox(-es) hoping to find something blown and easily fixed, but who knows. That's a lot of problems. Unless you get lucky you're going to wind up pulling the dash and trying to find what's messed up.

Needs an alignment at a minimum, but wouldn't do that until I'd looked at the rest of the front end first and maybe even tires. Not likely (directly) related to the t-bar crank either, but more likely an accident/impact and/or poor repairs from such.

Turndowns are a sloppy answer. You wind up gassing yourself and passengers if you have to sit in traffic, not suitable for your stated daily driver goal.

Quick way to achieve this if you're getting ready to sell the car and want more $$ for it: change oil and fill overflow tank with bright colorful stuff, then drive as little as possible before selling. Depending on how clogged the cooling system is it might never pull from the tank. How's the stuff in the radiator?

White smoke usually means coolant is getting burned, which might mean things like a blown head gasket or worse. Things aren't sounding good.

Confused; if the key doesn't go to lock it's not parasitic drain, it's normal drain. Almost def. needs a new ignition switch, and this might mean it was broken into before and damaged. Did you get a carfax on it?

Sorry man, but all things considered I'd want to take a moment and reflect on how much of a headache I was willing to endure and how much money I was willing to put into this thing before continuing just to have this ZR2 instead of something else, because it sounds like kind of a basket case. Could be that it's best to walk away from your current $1500 investment instead of putting good money after bad.

Sorry.




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From the owner manual it states there are 5 positions - A) Accessory B) Lock C) Off D) Run E) Start. I would think Off is at least off... probably does need a new switch. Motor oil is used but not black, not recently changed - coolant doesn't look new but consistent of that universal green prestone stuff - it hasn't lost any coolant and only smokes on start up in sub 30F weather. I don't want to polish a turd but for $1500 you can't expect much. I was told the motor has been replaced and it looks like new gasket material at the front of the crankshaft. If the vehicle lasted a year I'd be happy and it runs and drives with no slippage or hesitation - I would do simple things like $10 for some door pins or a fuse or wiring to fix an overhead console. If it lasts six months and I get $100 in scrap I call that a win vs a car payment on a new vehicle - any more than that it's all gravy

 

I am very happy with the cat back exhaust from Gibson which I paired with a new Magna flow Y pipe with the pre cat and cat (2001 ZR2). Although I welded the pipe on the Gibson exhaust instead of clamping it.

The electrical could be simple in a couple of ways there could be a fuse issue OR a meth induced really big stereo install and removal.

What you do have good for you is this forum with excellent DIY articles and some excellent videos on YouTube and some entertaining idiots of what not to do.

One other thing you have going for you these vehicles are common in the pick and pull yards right now