I live in long beach washington but i came out to see my mom in my 96 blazer 4 door 4wd and i broke down 10 minutes from her house. The blazer got towed to a local shop that my moms bf used, but I am worried about what could be wrong with it. I have been slowly getting the maintenance up on it. It needed a new o2 sensor when i bought it and I had the transmission and the transfer case flushed because I had read up on automatic transmissions failing. After that I had the plugs and wires and cap and rotor replaced as those were factory and the ecu was throwing a misfire code. My mechanic told me that the ecus on 96s are dumb and they where the first ones to have obd2. He said that the ecu might have to be cleared a couple of times if the engine light came back on, but it never did. I was also told the thermostat needed replaced, but I never had it done, its only been a couple weeks. I mostly drive it short distances so it only gets about 1/4 warm. On the way to moms the engine light came back on. I figured it just finally got up to temp enough for the ecu to throw the codes. I decided to head home this afternoon though and on the freeway doing 65 it decided to shift into a lower gear so it was doing around 4k. I tried to get it to shift up, but it refused, so I pulled over and the radiator was cracked. I am not sure if the ecu went into a limp mode. I checked the fluids after we got it towed and they were all fine except for the radiator obviously. I am hoping the radiator sprang a leak first and the codes are just the old codes coming back. Anyways the shop wont be able to look at it until tomorrow and i need a new radiator at least.

 

that sux man, sorry for ur luck. y cant all the cars be mechanical again?

 

Welcome.

Your trip sounds like my last one to my moms. Mine died about 15 min away after a 7hr trip one way. Good luck, there is a ton of info here to help you out.

 

Welcome from New Jersey

 

welcome from New Orleans

 

Welcome from VA!!

 

rexmburns, your blazer looks like a very modified version of mine and I think I know what I want to do with mine now when I get it running again. The shop here in the gorge quoted me 3500 to replace the radiator in the transmission and the shop at home said around 1400 to 1000 so the blazer is getting towed home on saturday and I am coming home today. The shop here in the gorge specializes with subarus as they are super popular here in the gorge. I also think he was trying to sell me on a brand new transmission, where as my mechanic at home was looking at a used one with a 6 month warranty. I think I should look at an eventual manual swap though since it sounds like the auto trannies on these are junk. I am mostly a nissan guy at heart, but I do like my blazer a lot. Have there been many manual transmission swaps?

 

Welcome from NY

 

Yeah $3500 is crazy you can buy a whole other truck and just take parts for that price d***! Good luck getting it back on the road and remember there are a ton of guys and gals on here that are willing to help any way they can.

 

welcome and good luck....keep us posted.