I want some road trip stories.
 

Hey guys, I am new here at these forums. I have been lurking and found a lot of interesting things and so far I am enjoying my stay.

I am making this thread because there are very few road trip stories in this forum, which I have read them all.

At the moment, I have a 1989 Acura Legend. Yes, I bought it to have fun in and screw around only for 650$. Well, little did I know, once you fix something, something else breaks and requires more maintenance, I have had it for over a year, and it has been having problems ever since and I am tired of dumping money into it.

I decided enough is enough and went to look at new cars. I saw a few neons for a great deal, I was looking for something stick if it was a car, and auto or stick if it was a truck. Well the neons fell through, and I spotted a 1999 Chevy Blazer in the corner of the dealership. It is in really good condition, 146k miles, blue. I took it for a test drive and fell in love with it because of its comfortable environment I guess you would say. I like how everything is closer together instead of spaced out like an exploder, but it also has enough room for storage. I am getting the blazer wednesday or thursday and I am glad I am making this purchase.

Anyway, since my acura couldn't take me on any real road trip without getting down the street overheating, I hope the blazer will.

I live in pennsylvania, I am looking to travel to Florida which would probably be the furthest, but also I want to travel to Delaware atleast 6-7 times a year. How good would a blazer be for a trip down to the beach in delaware or florida. Would you recommend it?

I want to hear some road trip stories, how the blazer drove, how much it costed, how it felt driving for a long distance, how comfortable it was, etc.

Wow, long story but that's information for ya.
Personally a blazer on a long haul is not the best mileage wise. If you want to be sure footed in whatever mother nature tosses at you or at least have a possible way out YES.
The boyscout in me always wants to be prepared & to be the one that's able to help someone (because of a very good 4x4 platform) it's great.
Comfortwise they're decent, I've made a few 220mile each way trips & I was fine with it. Regularly haul a 3500lb boat & trailer 2 1/2 hrs @ (75mph off n on) every weekend (or so I try) & it hauls it fine comfortwise.

It's the mileage that'll bite you in the ass, people will be comfortable, you'll feel safe n secure with the ability of a good 4wd platform (if G80 equipped - rear locker & what you may get into & out of).
So it's up to you, comfort is there, security is there, ability is there, storage is sort of there = now pay for it!

You're on a blazer forum so you're going to see a lot of blazer issues. Same can be said for an acura forum, or toyota etc.
Everytime I open the forum main page I see new issues, makes me think a blazer is bad! Go to a honda forum, you'll see the same things. It's a vehicle that has bad owners, neglect, abuse because some are 4wd? All vehicles have been down that road.
But all in all it's a capable vehicle that does more than a car & is sofaking fun off road! lol

Thanks for the comment! I love the idea of being able to take this somewhere and get through anything that tries to stop me on the way. I also love the idea of being able to give a hand to someone in need!

I know what you mean about all the issues people post on forums, I am a member of legend forums and it is the exact same way there. I see many things like "i hate my blazer" and then I will see threads like "I LOVE my blazer"

So, you said it is bad mileage wise for trips, but is it a road trip vehicle? Other than the mileage, would you recommend it for a road trip?

Yeah it's a good road trip vehicle. Lots in here have commented about long trips with their blazers. One guy in Winnipeg has taken his to BC a few times, now that's a long haul from Manitoba.

I have my Blazer for almost 2 years. Bought it as a hobby, made some modifications, put a lot of money in it.

But I like to drive it. german people look at you, as if you do something forbidden.
Cops never stop me, because they don´t have any idea of the car, old men go crazy.

I like it. They hate me for that car, they hate me for guzzling gas, they hate me for the little confederate flags on the doors.

They can kiss my a**.

I like the feeling to drive my Blazer.

This past fall my family and I moved from Vegas out to chicago. Had to drive seeing as we wanted to keep all of our stuff hah. Anyways, my brother drove the moving truck and i tailed behind in my 98 blazer. Even though the 1700 mile trip was long as hell (due to a few break downs on the FORD moving truck) i had a blast in my blazer. Had some great music, lots of comfort, had NO problems driving through the rocky mountains while being fully loaded and pulling a small trailer (the blazer also has 30X9.5 tires set at 45 PSI) . To my surprise i ended up getting around 20 MPG on the open roads. I would really recommend taking a trip in these vehicles. im actually planning a trip down to Louisiana this spring.

Last year me and my 2 brothers took my 2001 2dr LS down to Florida from Mass to install a hardwood floor at my sistershouse. Our niece devloped a severe allergy to the carpet in the house. A few days before going down the neighbors dog (a pit) broke thru the fence and mauled their dog. Road trip down was a blast 19 hrs straight without issues at all then we got to Florida. So we had to install the floor with her and her family in the way cause all the money for hotels went to the vet to save the dog. It was 95 degrees out we again are from Mass so we were used to the 30 degree weather at home it sucked. Then the neighbors dog broke thru the fence again. I had to threaten to beat the owner to death with my hammer cause he didnt care about the damage or menace his dog was to anyone else. He disappeared for a week after the neighboors heard me screaming at him and they all said kill him we hate him and no one will call the police! One person offered to dig the grave! So then we were done with the floor and it looked great, we recieved no payment at all (thanks sis) except gas and tolls for our 4 days of nonstop work. On the way home we were the 1st on the scene of a multifatality car wreck in south carolina. It was the most horrific thing ive ever scene literally bodies and bones and wreckage everywhere. The rest of the drive was a piece of cake the Blazer had no issues and to top it off at the 160000 miles the Blazer had at the time it was its 4th trip to Florida and we will be going again in 5 weeks now with 170000 on it. I love my 2dr LS. next time chevy wants to do a retro makeover bring the Blazer BACK!

When I lived in BC I was driving down the Hiway 1 at night when I saw a car burst into flames in the dark in what looked like the ditch, me and another 2 cars stopped and the car on fire was past the ditch on the other side of a fence actually. There was flames 30 feet high coming out all windows and nobody could go near in case it blew up. We stood and watched for 5 min till the firetrucks came. You could see a body writhing in the flames in the driver seat, it was horrifying as well. Ended up being a gang murder of some sort and the people who dumped the car probably didnt know the hiway 1 was on the other side of the fence in the dark, they just drove down a dark road and killed the guy and lit the car up in the darkness. Not really a road trip, but something that happened that will be in my memory while I was driving the blazer.

My Blazer also yanked a full loaded trailer through the Rockies with no problems but got horrible milage due to the spider leak.

Yeah the Blazers allright for road trips, got loud tunes, can go offroad in the cool spots you find, its cheap to fix... I like mine.

I drive the 800 mile round trip between home and college 4 times during the school year for breaks. I have a 2001 ZR2 with 111000 miles on it. I havent had any problems during the trip with it. Its comfortable to ride in and its fun to drive.

My only complaint is the fuel mileage, I usually get 18mpg on this trip. But I didnt buy it for the fuel economy.

I just drove down to the local store about a mile and a half away to get a 12 pack and my power ball numbers. No problems what so ever.

Oh, and I drive it to CO every year to hunt.

Awesome stories guys.

I have no clue what I would do if I saw bodies burning on the side of the road...I am sure to witness it someday..

Now that sounds like a road trip!

Dude I love taking my 95 blazer on road trips over my gfs 08 grand price. The grand price has way better acceleration but the blazer you gave a great view if everything around you and personally I think the comfort is phenomenal. I gladly pay more for gas to drive my blazer over her car.

^ I agree with the comfort. I remember the first time I drove my Blazer I was like damn this thing is comfortable! Now if I could just figure out where all the damn rattles are coming from... Ugh.

But anyways a friend & I are going to Vegas in like a month or so for some summer parties. We'll most likely take the Blazer which is fine w/ me!

Heres a long story but its a good one. I was 16, I just got my liscence the day before our yearly family gathering in Wisconson (3 1/2 hours away). My mom had an 89 Blazer 2 door. I forget how many miles and she never checked her mpg. Anyway, she let me drive. We get to Wisconson and while we waited for other people to arrive I wanted to go drive around and explore. I took my cousin, brother, and dog.We found what looked like a dirt road/drive way. Turns out it was an atv/snowmobile trail. I kept driving because I was curious to see where it lead to, there were hills, banked turns, puddles, and those motocross giant washboard hills. The Blazer took it all like a champ. The only problems we had during our time out on the trails were an atv almost ran into us coming around a corner, and my dog got a little car sick and threw up on the floor right behind the driver seat,lol. Then the next problem came when we were headed home, somehow I bent the belt pulley on the bottom of the engine, so it had to be towed to my uncle's place to get it fixed. My first lesson on taking care of your vehicle. Ill never forget that expirience, not too many can say they illegally went offroading on state atv trails the day after they got their liscence from a different state,lol. Thanks for reading, sorry it was a long one...

:icon_special:

Drove to NC. Stayed for a week. Drove back.

The end.

:D

How many miles did that put on the Blazer?

I've towed cars on dollys hundeds of miles, I've skidded thousands of board feet of timber, I've climbed over stuff, through stuff, and unfortunately around stuff at times. I wouldn't trade my truck for the world.

But... I almost lost it to the ocean on memorial weekend.

Even a great truck has its kryptonite. I broke the front driveline, in the sand, last one on the beach, at night, an hour before curfew.

Makes you feel real small real quick.

Luckily I had been spotlighting a hill for some quads earlier, they saw me in the creek flashing my lights and came back to see what was up. They got a rhino and pulled me out of the creek. ( I was high centered on a log, rear wheels dangling in the creek, front driveline CV exploded, front wheels half on the other bank.)

They got me back on the flats and 2 wheel drive was fine headed up the beach...

Till I turned and tried to cross the dune to camp. 50ft... Stuck... Digging frantically... Give it some gas honey... rock it... brake. brake.

On the frame. In the sand. on the beach. who knows were the tide was.

How small i felt when i actually abandoned her. on a Freaking beach!

Walked. begged. disobeyed curfew. risked tickets. cool people. big dodge diesel. tow strap.

pulled into camp, scraped out my britches, went to bed. woke up, packed up, drove home.

bought a new driveline at picknpull.

Now that's a road trip!

Oh yah did I mention 70~ mph across the sand, cookies, and hill climbs prior to the driveline explosion. yah its a fun truck!

I found the ill in illinois
 

Two Blazer trips (2000 4x4) are worth repeating here. Both speak fairly well for the truck. 1. No good deed goes unpunished. My sister in law is disabled and was moving from Chicago to Southern Il. To help, we the wife and I loaded and drove the 38' rental truck with a trailer carrying her car, while she drove my truck, behind us. 2 way radios and 300 miles went well, no storms (Jan) but there was some snow near Carbondale. Not knowing where we headed once off the highway, I told her to take the lead as she had been coming down for months while having the home built. Problem was, she lead us into a dead end and while trying to turn the 38' plus trailer, I turned into a field I figured might be frozen given the 3" of snow on it. No such luck the truck went up to the axel in red mud. I stopped swearing and mucked out to the blazer which had all my normal life and safety stuff including a tow strap I'd used a few times pulling Fords out of ditches. I unhooked the trailer and got the strap on the tongue. Backed that baby right out with plenty of mud spattered about. Turned it 90 deg. and backed the hitch into in and let her rip. No sweat. That gave me incentive to try loosening up the big truck, just pulling from it's ball hitch and of course neither of the ladies wanted to drive the big truck and so we waited until our nephew (who was at SIU) to come help. Now it's after midnight and with the nephew comes the local leo. Not a scary thing normally but He told us we were on private property! Well not wanting to look like a loser, I called AAA and got a tollway rated tow truck to come. He smiled ran out the cable and put down the outriggers. When the winch started to smoke, he suggested I back the truck while he cranked it up. It broke free and we hitched everything up to go to this pretty little brand new house, where we covered most of the bathrooms with red mud. So it can tow, most things.
2. The Clampetts come to Illinois. Being it's her sister and as I have a soft spot for canines, I saw that sis had her 3 little houseslippers in the new home but were coyote bait without gates on the large deck. So I measured and gauged and designed two gates with S/S hardware of 4x4 postw and 1x1 spindles. One was 40" wide, the other 32". Both were 36" high. They weighed almost 150# each average. I knew that they would be uncomfortable inside given that mama and I and the 75# eating pooping machine that we adopted were gonna wanna be inside. I put them on the roof rack. Leaving about 6am, we beat traffic Sat and the weather was fine. (May). Just south of Chicago we heard a thump and a squeal from the front right. I mad my way over to the shoulder and saw to my horror that the hub had disintegrated and the wheel was being held on by the brake shoe bracket and upper ball jouint. Oh I forgot, I was towing a 5x8 utility trailer filled with sis's leftovers. I called AAA and told them my predicament. They sent a flatbed who hoisted the truck up and hitched the trailer on back. He suggested we "go to his place in Flossmore" I estimated that to be about 8 miles, AAA pays the first 5. I askd where the closest Chev Dealer was and he sid "next exit". i figured as how they might have the part that he would have to find and he agreed. I had replaced these hubs at every 40k since they have no lubrication ooption and according to Chevy are "lifetime" parts. I have that quote recorded. Any way, the dealership was opening the service bay door when we pulled up and they had us underway in less than 2 hours and just over $700 lighter. This highlights the almost universal availability of repair parts and service that gnaws at me when I think about that Murano. 178K and I'm now replacing the compressor clutch for the first time. Of course it chose a 94 deg day to freeze up with a most grinder/cheese grater sound. So if that helps, I bought this slightly used 20k in 2001. If it's crappy out, we take the Blazer, if we got stuff to lug or haul, the Blazer, if we want to take the dog we take the Blazer. If the sun is shining and the forecast is fine we take the Sebring, put the top down and Cruuuuuuse. The dog stays home.

best ive done is from Calgary, Ab to Fort Smith, NWT, then back to Jasper AB with a bunch of random driving thrown in, a little wheeling, a lot of energy drinks and some good times. round trip we clocked a little over 2100 miles from what i remember... which is about 3200 km. about 1/3 of this was done on crappy dirt roads, potholed and full of massive puddles and even larger buffalo. it was fun, no issues from the Jimmy. definately glad for 31s, tbar crank and 2" BL for some of those roads.

not a story just a comment i always get stopped by the state troopers of Texas on my way back home going the speed limit.

Road trip.....
 

I have a stock 2000 blazer 4x4 with the vortec V-6. We moved to Florida from Kansas City,Ks. And nobody in my wifes family thought the old truck would make it, but surprise...She made it and 7 years later I'm still driving it...Both my mother-in-law and my wife have bought new cars since being down here.... I won't get rid of it til it totally frags.....

me and the wife bought a 99 4 door blazer for 1500$ canadian with 182000km. then we decided to go on a road trip, planned out a map through the states and took the blazer on the road for a week. we started coming into the states via sarnia border crossing. travelled to lansing michigan then down to indianapolis indiana. from there we went to louisville kentucky and to nashville tennesse. after that we headed toward washington dc and back home through the falls over the rainbow bridge. on our trip weve stayed at a couple of hotels, camped on the side of a mountian and seen many hicking trails and scenic caves. weve taken our picture with yogi bear, this is after waking up at 8am, driving 15 min, and having to wait because nothing was open until 8 am and it was now 715 where we were lol... damn central time lol.... we spent around 1500$ on our round trip including parts for the truck. driving down the interstate i found out that i had a ball joint or two that were shot... by the time i got home, the inside of my tires were so unevenly worn that it was a mix between new thread and a drag slick.

I drive my Blazer to my cabin in the mountains almost every weekend. It's almost entirely interstate driving the whole way there and I've taught myself to drive carefully enough that I can just barely scrape 20mpg out of a trip. Road trip story in which I was not driving my Blazer. I work for a music festival company so I was hauling a load of sound equipment about 800 miles to the next show in New York. On the way there I stopped for lunch in Charlottesville Virginia. About 10 minutes after being on the road I see a 2 door Blazer literally flying through the air turning head over heals. I pulled over immediately as the Blazer slammed into the pavement. The driver had not been wearing her seat Belt and was thrown through the sunroof in mid-air. She smacked the pavement face first about 30 feet from where the Blazer landed.

95 4 door Jimmy
 

this could be considered a road trip story... My former S truck was a Jimmy... it was used to haul cars I parted out for my business... We moved to Colorado from Wisconsin and on the move we were driving our 95 Camaro and the Jimmy with dolly in tow.. The Camaro went and we pulled it to Denver with the Jimmy... what a workout!!! All in all it got to a repair shop and the Jimmy got us over the mountain to our new home... Awesome Jimmy!

I don't know if this counts but
A few months ago I bought my 2002 2 door blazer with 200k miles on it for $1200 and drove it home 250 miles. I was expecting something to break the whole way but had zero issues. These things seem to be built tough overall but the little things will nickel and dime you to death.
Now if I could just get all of the parts together to start the 5.3 swap,:icon_steer:

Many many years ago in BC Canada...

... in Winter 1991 we headed over to Vancouver from Europe to visit friends of my GF. Stayed for two weeks and when arriving had one of these surprises with the weather.

The locals say - If it snows it will melt within days - no worries.

Already at that time a meteorology afficionado I thought different. As a rental car I wanted a 4x4. Turned out they had more or less exactly one left in the vicinity. Drove with the local friends Suburban to go get it. It was a Jimmy 4x4.

The next two weeks we put 2'000 miles on it in snow, ice, mud, gravel and oh - before i forget streets and highways. Been everywhere from the Golden Ears regional park to race the large parking lot and get a feel for the Jimmy to Squamish.

Pulled a Honda Accura out of a snow bank. Couple of youngsters tried to race it in the overspill parking lot at the Golden Ears park. Gee the guys were happy to find out someone with a Jimmy is coming their way.

Gone down to Seattle. Got over 1 1/2 feet of snow. Used the scenic route along the coast which saved us from getting stuck on the interstate which was blocked in several places. The 4x4 and good ground clearance got us there in a couple of hours.

The return trip was even better. One foot of compacted snow on the Interstate and then it started to rain. Only traffic was 4x4's and Haulers. These guys were just crazy!
With the one foot of snow on the pavement and the water it had started to form areas of a mile or so with huge holes in the snow. Had to curve around them even in the Jimmy got thrown around. I'm a trained truck driver and know my ins and outs on offroading.

Not being in a hurry drove fast on the good stretches and slow in the bump parts. Then we came up where the snow had blocked the drains. Now we were faced with floodings of up to two feet deep.
The guys with the Trucks would just plow through them. A guy with a small VW was always overtaking us on the good stretches and fall behind on the bad ones. He drove like a berserk through the floodings and not so smartly in the middle of the road instead of closer to the higher side ...

... I drive slowly through floodings. It was a rental in stock trim. No snorkel, therefore you use fording techniques such as judging or walking through ford first (judging was fine here as we could see the jersey concrete profiles on both sides) and driving into at 10mph steady, then accelerating just so it creates a little bow wave.

Last thing I see from the VW is a big splash behind me into the same flooding where we are just in the middle. Concentrate on driving through the next thing i see in the mirror is the VW in the middle of the flooding stopped and a large flatbed covering it with his bow-wave.

The flatbed stops so we continue. Used to do offroading in the 90's and early 2k's so this influenced the decision what to buy once back home.

With these rides experience it was a Blazer. Since 1994 I own still the same Chevy Blazer 4x4. Has 178'000 miles on it today still going strong with the usual parts to be exchanged. Overall a cheap car. 23 years it cost me less than 12'000$ in service and parts. That's some 550$ a year doing on average 21 mpg.

Hey,
I've made a few trips from NC to Florida and back - with loaded blazer and dog. In fact going again in a week or so.

Just my opinion but blazer runs well on long trip, lots of room for stuff and dog (Daisy).

Fairly comfortable - gas mileage not so good though, but no problems.

Biggest scare came when a semi just ahead and to right blew his left front tire and ripped his fender to pieces. He handled it well - swerved a little towards me then got it under control. But, a giant field of tire and fiberglass pieces were flying right in front of me. I cut the wheel and aimed for a little clear area in the mess of flying debris and went off the road as all kinds of crap flew around me - left a couple of marks on truck, but at least nothing came through the windshield.

I pulled over and checked my blazer, the semi driver pulled over and another box truck pulled over - in the end everybody and all was fine. It was a little scary and happened completely out of the blue, but no major damage - a few marks that needed to be wheeled out. Once my heart rate returned to normal I finished drive.

Most trips pretty routine though - maybe a good thing.