hi - I am looking to buy a blazer as a first car for my son. My budget is around 4500 so I am looking into a 2002 to 2004.

is there one year that is more reliable then the other? What common things should I be looking for when buying a blazer? I had a nice 2002 with 120k check by my mechanic but it had several oil leaks including the rear seal so I passed on it.

 

I have an 04 2wd with almost 180k miles and have had no problems with anything except the seat recline mechanism. I have friends with 4.3's with over 250k on the clock. If they have been maintained, the 4.3L is a great motor. But 4500 wouldn't come close to buying mine.

 

Anything 98+ will be your best bet.

This thread compiles a lot of problems we've all dealt with: https://blazerforum.com/forum/genera...r-quirks-5771/

I'm not sure which year they updated the spider assembly but that's worth looking into.

 

its hard to find one around here for under 5,000 or under 150,000 miles. biggest thing ive seen is the front door pins wear through the bushings and into the hinge metal, but it happens to all of them, its a heavy door for the size of the hinge pin and is easily changed out, if the pin has worn into the hinge itself, some j.b. weld along with a new bushing will help things out. theres alot of annying little things that the blazer chassis has specific to it, nothing that "red-flags" a certian year. if it appears well-maintained then its probly a good one to go with. the engine is probly the least of your worries, on 4x4's dad has had 2 have a front seal failure of the transfer case which caused problems with the transmission fluid level. you'll want to keep a good eye on that. oil leaks? heck thats almost as much of a sign that its a chevrolet as is the bowtie emblem on the front grille! ive had rear axle leaks (easily fixed withing a couple hours) , front axle leaks. ($4 part, 3 hrs per side for halfshaft seal replacement), only thing that hasnt leaked is the transmission & transfer case, but mine is upwards of 200K miles, guess its bound to leak after that many operating hours. i dont much care for the spider fuel-injection setup, it works great, gives the engine plenty of power, but when the system fails, its not always visable, and is costly to fix. i love mine when its running right, they can be a pain to work on sometimes though.

 

Our 2002 Blazer is at 193K and running hard and looking good. Seat is showing wear and driver side power window is moving from a popping sound to jumping out of track. It is auto 2WD so it are not as many moving parts as a 4WD.

We just bought a 1998 S10 2WD Manual Step-Side PU with 524K miles but blew it up in short order so the engines can be good for half a million miles.

If you buy one with half a million miles (that would be crazy unless for a project truck) make VERY sure you learn how the last owner drove it and drive it the VERY same way WITHOUT exception.

 

HEY NOW!! lol 95-97 is just fine to! if you are looking for second gen anyway.

My friend owns a 95 with 212,000 on the clock and it is running perfectly fine. not a single hiccup in the 6 months hes owned it. I own a 97 with 119,000 miles and i love it. has never let me down. well i had a lifter stick on me at one point after i went to synthetic oil but it just ran like crap for 5 minutes then went away

So what to look out for.. As was already mentioned the door hinges, very common problem, mine are going out to. i would look under the hood to check out to condition of all the vacuum lines that you can see. find a way to try out the 4WD. check for slop in the steering (obviously) but after a while the rag joint in the steering likes to go out, really cheap and easy fix, or it can be lots of other things in the front end. but yeah honestly the motor is the least of your worries, 1995 to 2005 they where all great motors as long as they got fed oil regularly. no year stands out as a bad one, the new style of injectors introduced in 2000 (i think?) were a little better i suppose but they can fail just like the old ones.

 

Thanks all 4 your feedback...

Regarding the spider fuel-injection setup. One mechanic did mention this part can cause problems and it's a pricey repair. Was this part improved in any of the years? I am currenly looking at a 03' with 97K and a 04' with 117K miles. Would these years likely have the older/newer part?

 

It looks like the changeover from SCFI to MPFI happened in 2002 so both trucks you mentioned would have the upgraded spider assembly. It's about a $250 part from rockauto plus the labor to get to it.

 

Just last month I was looking for the same thing in the same price range for my daughter. If you want 4wd you may need to try and find a clean low milage model from the late 90s to stay in your price range. The Blazers from 96 on up were basically the same in most aspects, redesigned in '95 but '96 on up runs the same type of OBD II emissions diagnostics. Also, the S-15 GMC Jimmy is esentially the same as the S-10 Blazer. We ended up buying a pristine '96 Jimmy SLT 4-door, 4wd, with 81,000 miles on it that was a one owner vehicle, new tires and battery, all receipts, always garaged, all power, leather, etc. for $3,300. She has already taken it back and forth to Colorado (700 miles each way), driven it in heavy snow, etc. and absolutely loves it.

 

Go for an '02+. Aside from what has been mentioned about the spider assembly, NO EGR or secondary air injection system.