My first car is the chevy blazer i have. My grandpa owns a used car dealership in iowa and i got it from him.

It is a 1998 Blazer LS 4-door 4x4. It has 135000 Miles on it. It needs the muffler and exhaust doughnuts replaced, all the front bushings and bump stops replaced, the driver seat is falling apart, the door panels are broken (like all the ones in the world), the bottom of the driver door is slowly rusting, the bottom of the rear passenger side door has a hole rusted in it, the inside rattles like hell and the underside is unbelievable dirty and just rusty. But the engine runs great and i love the freaking car to death. I have done a bunch of mods to it...at first i did alot of the mods kind of half *** but lately i have been taking pride in my work.

I was up in iowa at my grandpas this weekend and he had a 2002 LS Blazer 4x4 4-door the same color as mine. it has a sunroof (mine doesnt). no body rust that i could find ANYWHERE. The underside looks great, super clean. the interior is tan/light brown (mine is dark graphite). has the double din radio. super clean engine bay. NO BROKEN INTERIOR PANELS (i couldnt even believe this). I can take leather power/heated seats out of a wrecked blazer he has and put them in it (the seats are the same tan color). The only issues i can find are that it apparently has a battery drain issue (which i know can range from something stupid as the crappy alarm system someone put on it, all the way up to the BCM). I couldnt hear it with the engine running because the battery was dead, meaning i also dont know the miles (was told around 130000-ish). and thats pretty much it....

My question is (finally lol) should i keep my blazer and just put all the money to get it mechanically fixed up. or should i trade my blazer (and a little money) in to get the newer nicer blazer??? Getting the new blazer would give me a fresh start to do all my modifications correctly and i (knock on wood) wouldnt have as much mechanical and other crap to fix and worry about....any feedback would be great. Thank you.

 

Four years and 5k less miles? Are you better with electrical or mechanical. The more you fix the probs on the 98 the more it will be as a trade. Also see if Gramps will let you tinker with the 02 to see if the electric is an easy fix. Dont worry, just yet, about mods. Make sure you can make it to San Fransisco and back without fail, first. Good luck.

 

Im pretty good with electrical and decent with mechanical (i think i can get the suspension apart and change the one bushing thats almost non existent anymore but i dont know if i could put it back together properly.

I suggested that i could work on the electrical issue for him if he would like since the local mechanic wont touch the electrical since it has this junky security system on it(he lives in a tiny town, usually sends cars to the local mechanic or to mechanics in one of the other towns nearby) I used to work at a car audio place and we installed security and remote starts...i installed a security system on my 98. He was going to take the 02 in and get the engine/some front suspension looked at (A women previously owned this vehicle [not saying women are bad with this] she didnt take good care of cleaning up after herself in the inside, and im hoping she did okay with taking care of the mechanical side of it but we will see.

And im slowly tryin to fix small issues on the 98, i dont wanna put a lot of money in it if im gonna get rid of it, so i have been either fixing things that are cheap to fix, or trying to make things less noticeable.

What do you think would be a fair price to pay for the difference between the vehicles??

 

at those miles - both trucks are going to start needing a lot of work here and there. Go with the 2002, for future trade value.. as most people only care about the year and miles not the rest of the deal.

 

Trade it and get a newer-
When rust start, it is a lot of expensive to try to stop it.
Also "interior" issues normally are more expensive that mechanical ones... so stetics beat mechanical... (excluding engine and tranny rebuild...)

Probably you will need to replace again bushings and ball joints...

And, if have enough money, you could always do a mix and match between blazers....

Good luck

 

There were a few important improvements in 02. No EGR, SMPI system instead of a CPI.

 

I would say trade it for the newer Jimmy,The fact that its virtualy rust free is major plus going for it.

 

SMPI or MPFI?

As far as I know, up to 2001 (an probably early 2002 models) have SMPI, but newer had MPFI, newly designed camshaft, new master cylinder and other details (LU3 engine)

Sadly, here in Chile we don't receive 2002 Blazer, only Brazilian made S10 with the LU3 engine and 4l60e tranny (the best item in those trucks...)

 

What is SMPI, MPFI, CPI??? i dont have a clue what your all talking about.

 

different kind of fuel inyection. CPI states for central port injection and it have just one inyector. SMPI states for sequencial multipoint inyections and have 6 inyectors attached to poppets alves. Kind of rare concept. MPFI is multi point fuel injection and it have six real fuel inyectors. As ar as O know, less toubles with CPI and MPFI. SMPI is know because it tend to plug the popet valves.

So, if you get MPFI is far better than SMFI