1996 Chevrolet Blazer LS from North America - Comments

My '96 Blazer has over 411,000 kilometers on it (over 250,000 miles) and has been wonderful. And I say that facing a fuel pump replacement this week -- the first time anything in fuel system has been a problem. Yes, I've followed the maintenance recommended and replaced bearings and ball joints, but this puppy just goes and goes and I'll be happy to drive her for another 400,000 kms here in Canada and in the U.S. where she's visited 43 states and driven through every major desert without a whimper. Only other significant replacement is the alternator, and they'll always need replacement some day. If your 'check engine light' comes on, change your gas supplier -- that's what it took for me. The brakes have always been more than reliable even when hauling heavy loads and trailers. Change your oil regularly and wash it at least weekly, especially in the dead cold of winter and you'll be a happy Blazer owner.

My Blazer is a 1995 and has well over 100,000 miles on it. It has never ever ever needed anything except the basic changes. I tend to drive it a little harder than the norm, but it still keeps kickin. It seems to me that a lot of the people who complain about the blazer are the ones who see a light and do everything to the car except what is needed. My favorite is the took 3 years for the door rattle to go, did you think it just stops on its own? Also the Vortec engine is a foreign design that was put into the blazer and is also found in other foreign made cars. Speaking of which, I highly discourage buying Japcrap among some other foreign cars as they do tend work for around 40 to 60 thousand and than high priced parts start failing. The worst horror story I have heard was of the entire engine falling literally falling two inches down off the car while driving. From my own experience I curb checked my friends truck ever slightly and snapped the axle on his Tundra, worst part he had just had the axle replaced four months earlier when it had snapped while mudding. Also don't forget many parts for these cars are jacked up in price simply for the shipping.

I recently bought a 1996 blazer LS 4x4. I took it for a test drive and it ran great. it looked in really great shape. A couple of weeks later on a few hour highway trip the engine light came on. The vehicle after that when stopped would shift hard into 2nd gear. On the way home it went out, and then came back on when I was 1/4 mile from home. I have a ODBII code reader which I used and the code said it was a transmission fluid pressure sensor problem. I took it to a very trustworthy transmission shop where I live for them to check it out. They informed me from the start that these Chevy trannies are pretty much crap. The owner has a Z71 pick up that had the same problem. It has 170,000 km's or 100,000 miles on it, but in the condition it was in and the previous owners, I highly doubt it was driven hard or poorly maintained. These trannies are so bad that there are upgrades that you can buy to install to improve the quality of the transmission so it's better than the original. This was recommended instead of buying rebuilt where your getting the same old crap. It wasn't cheap, but here's hoping it'll last long enough to get my money's worth out of it.

Old thread but here goes -- the thing that makes me think this reviewer is just trying put down Chevies is the brake comment. The brakes run on a mechanical system -- not computer. Makes the whole thing suspect.

We have a 96 Blazer that we purchased new, and it now has 211000 miles. It's been used (towing, some off road use, etc) but not abused & maintained well and I have no complaints.

The water pump failed early so I got rid of the dex-cool, which may have been a plus, but at this point I've replaced one alternator, one belt tensioner, front hubs, rear universal joints, tune up (fuel filter, cap & rotor, still has the original plugs that are at.0060), fuel pump, and usual stuff like brakes & belt.

Over 13 years & 200,000 miles, that's probably 600 - 700 worth of parts + my labor, but I'm not a professional and this thing is still a snap to work on, especially with a service manual.

Since 1983 I've been nothing but GM, and with the exception of a wrist pin knock in a 1992 Beretta, I've done great with GM products. That was 5000 miles out of warranty and dealer still replaced it with a new short block, and I had a 92 Corsica with the same engine, and that had over 200,000 when I got rid of it last year, and I think it's still being driven.

I laugh at all my neighbors with their fancy foreign vehicles that are constantly in the shop, most recently a 2001 Toyota pickup with approx 130,000 miles that had the damper come off and wipe out the crank (can you say new engine), and shortly after that expense found that it had frame rot to the extent that it could no longer be inspected (junk time), and a 2005 Audi that broke a timing belt, ouch on that $4000+ repair bill.

I'll stick with my GM products. Negative attitudes toward US auto manufacturers are mostly just perception brought on by ignorance and media.

I agree with the last comment the guy stated about foreign cars. People that say foreign cars are better than American car companies such as GM are wrong. GM and other American car companies the cars will last a long time if you do the proper maintenance.

People that are complaining about their Blazer having so much trouble. They're probably not doing the routine maintenance or they're just hard on their vehicle.

I'm 19 years old, and I own a 2003 Chevy Blazer. I've owned it for little over a year. Sure I had to replace the ball joints, idler arm, pitman arm and the timing chain gears because of a rattle noise it was making. After all that work was done, the engine noise stopped and the steering was much tighter.

I do a lot of preventative maintenance on my blazer. I changed the transmission fluid and filter, fuel filter, transfer case fluid, rear differential fluid, front differential, cooling system flushed, brake system bled, and I changed the oil myself every 3000 miles Mobil 1 oil with Lucas oil treatments. All of the work that I listed above I did myself besides the automatic transmission service. I added on a cold air intake system to deliver more air and a little bit more power to the engine, so the engine can breath better. Every 12K miles I take out the air filter clean it and re-oil it. It's a KN air filter.

I enjoy working on my truck because I know doing all of maintenance, my truck will last for many years to come. It just hit 100,000 miles and it runs like a brand new one. I wouldn't trade it for the world.