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Looking to buy a 2001 Blazer LS with 103k miles on it.
Hi, I’m new to this forum, but the reason why i made an account here is because I might be buying a 2001 Blazer LS 4wd with 103k original miles on it. It lived most of its life in Virginia.
I have no experience with Chevys of this era, and I hope Blazer experts can help and let me know if I should buy this car, and what are some of the potential problems I might encounter.
It has the 4.3 Vortec V6, original engine. 103k miles on it. It runs great. It seems to crank normally, but it would start slowly and climb slowly to 600-700rpm. But it starts every time. The transmission shifts smooth and great, and the button activated 4x4 also work great, sometimes I have to roll the car in reverse or drive for it to engage, but it seems to work good.
The body is in excellent condition, no signs of body work or frame work. The frame has some superficial rust, but it’s also in great condition. The front driver side and the passenger side carpet seems a little damp. The back and the trunk is completely dry to the touch.
The engine oil and the Transmission fluid is clean and in great condition. The power steering fluid is nice and red, but the one thing that really concerns me is the coolant.
The coolant still has a very slight green tint to it, but the coolant is basically brown. The inside of the coolant bottle is also coated in brown. The car doesn’t overheat but the color of the coolant concerns me.
So I want to ask all the Blazer experts, is this a good buy? What are some of the potential issues that might pop up on a 22 year old blazer? Please let me know 👍
if there’s anything else you want to know about this car to give me some advices, please let me know.
Always a concern with these engines is if the intake gaskets are leaking coolant into the crankcase. This in turn ruins the bearings. Happened to me with my 2001 creampuff with 64K miles. Previous owner obviously traded it off this way after changing the intake gaskets. I didn't bother to drive it enough to get it thoroughly warmed up enough to get the lifters ticking from low oil pressure until I drove it 100 miles home. Then I found the SES light disconnected on the back of the instrument cluster and connection taped over to hide the P0304 code that was being set immediately by the cylinder with the bad bearing. It was a real POS when I bought it. Transmission went too! But that was 70k miles ago.
Do yourself a favor and scan it for any codes, and drive it until thoroughly warmed up. Plan on doing intake gaskets if they have not been done.
PS fluid is clear not red (transmission fluid)
Coolant is Orange Dex-Cool unless someone has been mixing. Yes, most are rusty brown color. Some are way worse than others. I still run Dex-Cool in mine.
I was way off on my diagnosis at first.............. $5500 for the Blazer in 2014 $2500 for engine $2250 for transmission. About $15000 total (why I still have it in 2023). Still driving my money out of it. Good thing It's a looker (still is)! Otherwise would have been in the junkyard a long time ago. You can read all about it here.
There is a thread on common issues with Blazers that you should find. Most are annoying but very fixable.
Know that a 22 y.o. vehicle will/can have many worn out parts that will need attention. These include suspension parts, leaky oil lines, brake parts, etc. These can be dealt with piece-meal. If you are a home mechanic, you can save a lot of money doing the repairs yourself.
However, there are few things that could cause catastrophic failures or be super expensive to repair.
The most important one is the lower intake manifold (LIM) gasket failure mentioned above. When these fail, coolant dumps into the lifter valley and oil system with little or no warning. The mix of water and oil can ruin an engine in only a few miles. As soon as I learned of this I replaced them. There are several threads on doing that repair.
Another thing to watch for is the transmission. If not treated well, such as allowing it to overheat while towing, the 3-4 clutch pack can fail due to seals that were overheated failing. I learned this the hard way.
The third one is the cooling system. These trucks originally came with Dexcool coolant that was orange. It was good stuff if the cooling system was kept full and never mixed with the traditional green coolant. The result of either would be the precipitation of a brown gunk that could clog the cooling system; the block, radiator, the heater core, and overflow tank. It can be hard to remove the gunk, but can be done.
The obvious reason to address the cooling system is for the benefit of the engine. However, clogging of the heater core can create a big hassle and be expensive because to replace it requires the whole dash to come out.
If the Blazer you are looking at has no OBD codes and is running fine, it could be very worth getting. If you do, look at addressing these big issues. Also have a shop look at it before purchase.
Last edited by christine_208; 03-04-2023 at 02:42 PM.
03-02-2023, 06:48 PM
Looking to buy a 2001 Blazer LS with 103k miles on it.
