Hey everyone new to the site and had quick question. I looked at 2003 blazer over the weekend and it was in great shape and drove really good. One thing i did notice was that there it had slight play in the steering. Is this common? It had 73k miles on it. ANy one had experience with it?

I could shake the steering wheel a little with out the wheels moving. normally in my other truck when i moved it the slightest the wheels moved. This is while driving.

Any help on this would be great. I will probably have to take it get checked out by a mechanic but I dont want to lose the sale to someoneelse.

 

A little bit of slop near center is typical for the reciprocating ball type steering gears. They will not steer exactly like a rack & pinion setup that pretty much all cars and most trucks now use.

You could take it some place and have the front end checked over. Most places like Midas, etc will do a front suspension/steering inspection for free. Much of what they'll want you to replace will be perfectly fine, but if you ask them to show you the areas of concern, you should be able to gauge if the inner/outer tie rod ends and the pitman/idler arms are good.

 

I don't know too much about the setup but from different searches on here it seems like it could be the Idler or Pitman arm. Check out this post which seems very similar to your situation (click). If you're buying from a dealer or even a used car place, see if they'll either lower the price for the defect or fix it before they sell it to you.

Hope you get it worked out and can be another proud Blazer owner!

EDIT: Man he is quick, snuck that post in there before I could finish typing! Swartlkk knows his stuff, definitely worth listening to.

 

I am buying from a private seller. He is firm on the price. he is asking $7000 apprantly he cosigned for a relative and the truck was reposessed and he paid it off so as not to affect his credit. It checks out also the carfax list it as being repoed. Seller sayshe already taking a big loss and he know he can sell it for this price. should I get I get it checked out before I buy? Just hard to do except for the weekends and dont know if he will sell by then.

 

Like I said earlier, there is some inherent slop due to the design of the steering system. It will never be as tight feeling near center as a rack & pinion setup.

My advice is this, if it isn't all that bad and you want the truck, buy it. Sure you may have to have some components replaced sometime down the road, but if the tires aren't showing signs of uneven wear, then the steering isn't a big problem yet. If you notice that it starts to either wander or drift with no steering input, then you'll need to have the steering evaluated.

A complete steering rebuild consisting of inner/outer tierod ends, pitman and idler arms, and an alignment shouldn't cost the DIY'er more than $400 (depending on quality of parts, upwards of $650 which would include Moog inner/outer tierod ends). But that is replacing all of the components and doing it yourself. If there really is a problem, you can replace just that one component, but the alignment cost ($60-$90) will be the same. If you find that a tierod end is on its way out, I recommend replacing them in pairs (i.e. if the passenger outer tierod is bad, replace that along with the driver's outer tierod and get it aligned.