She thought she had gotten a good deal, she really loved this car or truck, but she's had nothing but trouble since she got it. Today she was driving and her Battery light came on and stayed on, then her panel instruments quit working, so whats up with that, does anyone know what that could be? Then she has been having to put gas in the darn thing alot, it seems to be eating the gas like crazy and she can't afford it, does anyone know why her Chevy Blazer would be eating so much gas? She has a 2000 blazer, it has everything on it and when she got it it was so nice it looked well taken care of but now we wonder. Thanks for your help, her upset Mom.: icon_confused:

 

Well the bad MPG would be a signal that it needs a tune up. "Looking" and "Running" good are two different ball parks. The 4.3 is by a nature not good on gas, but when thing such as old oil, clogged air filters, old/grimy anti-freeze, clogged fuel filters, old spark plugs, etc. get thrown into play, you can see near single digit mileage.

Do you know much on the history of the truck? Were the thing's I have mentioned replaced recently (they should all be placed routinely at varying times).

As for the battery, does the truck start right up? or does it seem to have trouble and then finally start up. Could be a bad instrument cluster, battery, etc..

 

Sounds like the alternator has gone south. Did the truck eventually die after the gauges quick working?

 

Hello and welcome to the forum, sorry to hear about your daughter's Blazer. As far as the battery light, it is likely that your alternator or charging system has a fault but it is difficult to say without diagnosing in person. The dead gauges could be from a dead battery.

Fuel mileage isnt a strong point of these trucks, it depends a lot on driving conditions and how the truck is driven. The best i've seen is 23 mpg in an '01 with all highway driving which is good but not great compared to most of todays cars. It would be worth it to have your daughter calculate the fuel mileage to see if gas mileage is as bad as she thinks. These trucks have small gas tanks but she should be getting around 300 miles a tank. Oversized tires and stop and go driving tends to make it worse. Also if tires are slightly oversized it can throw off the odometer to the point where gas mileage will look real bad

 

You have a point w/ the small fuel tanks.. but i have NEVER seen over 240 per tank on my 01.

 

X2 on that. mine did the same thing, a couple of months after i bought it. te battery light would flicker every once in awhile, and i noticed the tach would drop slightly. but i only seemed to notice it while on the highway, not sure why, maybe less distraction?
this went on for a week or two before i got around to replacing it with a spare, but my truck never had a problem starting in the morning (or after work), and the temp was dipping down to the low -30's here in February (around -34 for you boys down there).

take your alt, and have it tested before anything else.

on a related note, how old is your battery? i'm asking, 'cause the one in my '98 is original (unbelievable, i know). and after having my radio on for an hour, maybe an hour and a half, i had to boost it to start. totally factory radio (not the Bose w/sub woofer system though), not "cranked" (was working on a car with my tools laid out in the back). i've never had that happen before-even with some of the systems i've installed in my rides. now, if i stop my truck with the 4-ways going (truck off) for 5 minutes, the voltage meter takes about 10 seconds to come back up to the running current of 14V. the truck doesn't have a problem starting (after a situation like that or in the morning), but i'm gonna be replacing the battery before Winter comes.

so, after that long winded story, i'd have the battery checked out as well. maybe even leave it @ the store overnight to see if it's gonna be a problem come Winter.

as for the mileage complaints, it still surprises me, the amount of people that can't beleive how bad these 4.3 can be on fuel. for a comparison, my 1990 5.7L powered 'Burb got the same mileage as this 2nd gen Blazer of mine. my '92 Jimmy used to get 650km to 75L of fuel & my '98 gets 400km to 60L of fuel, and it really doesn't matter if i'm on the highway with the cruise set @ 115KPH (70MPH) or driving a combined 30/70 of city/highway driving.

doing a full tune up (including all filter's top and bottom), changing all the vital fluids in the driveline, is just something i've always done to every vehicle i've ever bought-regardless of what the previos owner has told me was done. these 4.3's like the AC Delco products, so don't get any weird or fancy plugs an such. an obvious, but often over looked item, make sure your tires are properly inflated (refer to the sidewall on tire, NOT the door sticker)

hope some of this helps. sorry for going on and on (my wife is always saying i talk to much, but i just think i'm too opinionated, hahahaha!)

 

might be a bad catalytic convertor might be a bad fuel filter might be a bad air filter might eb anything...do yall know anything bout regualr tune ups? not to be rude or anything. it would be wise of u to go thru it with her as to wut could improve the mpg's as for the intrument panel im not sure as to wut could be the problem. go to autozone and they can have the battery and alternator tested and its a free service. they will be able to tell you iwut could be causing the problems with the charging and wut not and then it would be a good idea to have them hook up their code reader and they might be able to help you with ur prob with the instrument panel

 

WOW!! i really do go on & on. i started my post a minute after ve3nsv posted.

 

I have a 2000 chevy blazer as well I had to replace my alternator at about 80000 miles

 

Most people sell used cars because they know they haven't kept up with the maintenance. But I always figure that the more I fix the less will go wrong in the future. Actually my Blazer has been very reliable but I've owned it a very long time now and I've kept up on things all along. My BMW has been a POS since day one and has needed everything replaced - but it had over 100k miles on it when I bought it and it must not have seen much maintenance.