Hello, I am looking really hard at buying a 1994 s-10 blazer. Even though my first love is Dodge trucks I have always really liked the Blazer, Especially the first generation s-10s. The truck I'm looking at is a green 94 4 door 4x4. It seems to be in great shape and has 109,000 miles on it. The price the guy wants for it is $2900. I know these things are rock solid as far as running gear, My uncle had on and it went well over 200K and really still ran nice when he sold it. It will take a back seat to my SRT-10 in the summer and be my primary driver in the winter. My queston is are there any problem areas on the trucks (Example: Dodge transmissions) that I should take a close look at before buying this truck (keep in mind I work in an body shop and can do pretty much all of my own work short of an engine or transmission)? I have driven this truck about 60 miles, A good mix of highway and city and it seems to run very well. What do you guys think? Thanks in advance.

 

Ball joints always have to be replaced, I know that for sure. I replaced mine right when I bought it.

 

If the body is clean that sounds like a pretty good price. I've had a couple blazers and used to work on a lot of them at a previous mechanic job before I went back to school. Ball joints have always been a problem on these, frequent greasing will help quite a bit. The techs I worked with greased their own every 1500 miles or so. I have read lots of complaints about the front wheel bearings, they are easily damaged if the axle nut is overtightened with impact gun when servicing the front end, they should be torqued by hand with torque wrench to prevent bearing and abs sensor failure. GM from this period were often paint peelers and the headliners fall at about this age in all their products. Other frequent problems were intake manifold gasket failures and pinion seal leaks on rear diff and and axle shaft leaks on front diffs which are very expensive to fix. Overall these are a good rig if you take good care of it and keep fluids fresh and full, especially at the great prices you can find on used units. Also, keep door hinge pins very well greased, these tend to eat up bushings and need repair more than any other car I have ever worked on. Good luck!

 

Wow. Sounds like they seem to have all the same problems as Dodge pickups. Ball joints, Intake Manifold gaskets, etc. I should feel right at home. I am shocked at how cheap you can get these 90-94 Blazers. I was originally looking for a 94 or a 95 ram for my winter truck. Cheapest ones were like 5-6K with 150+ on them. One thing about my blazer thats going to take a little geting used to is the digital dash. It's driving me nuts already. But every thing else seem solid, No squeaks or rattles and I was looking at the records the guy kept for this truck and it looks like he took REALLY good care of it so I should be set. Thanks for responding!

 

Ya, I was happy to NOT get the digital dash. I've got a '93 and I love it The paint peeling happend on my passenger side door, plus my front fenders are pretty rusted, but I can get replacemnets for fairly cheap and a paint job. I haven't decided if I want to do all that work yet or drive 'er 'til she dies and buy a nice newer Blazer...

 

Mine is really clean. Paint still looks good, Athough the sticker things are coming off in a few places. No rust at all. That's pretty strange for a Minnesota truck, The plow guys are like really salt happy here. I'm thinking I might drive this thing to and from work (31 miles) to save gas. My SRT-10 gets a whopping 9 miles to the gallon on the highway.