If you could do it all over again, would you get your blazer?

[georgelovesdirt]

i would have never bought a blazer ever. im a young man i want fast sports cars that impress girls and makes my insurence outragious. not a lumbering american suv that requires you to constantly check to make sure eveything is ok on it.

i got my 1995 4 door 2wd blazer for free, my gparents who live in OK gave it to me on the first of jan 2003. it had a mear 40,000 miles, was garage kept and always maintained properly by the dealer. my grandparents got it to tow their fishing boat.

i was fixing to trade in the blazer for soemthing that actualy fit my needs cause at the time it was worth 7 grand, it was literaly flawless. had leather, cd player, towing hitch. ran like it was showroom new. but i didnt have the spare cash to get the car that i actualy wanted; some audi or something (sure glad i didnt make that crappy choice, it would have been shelling out WAY more for maintanance than my blizzy) so i was going to drive it for a bit then trade it in later. as time passed i realized that i probably shouldnt waste my money on another car, seeing as how the blazer i just got for free ran perfectly fine. at that time my parents were paying for most of my gas so that wasnt an issue. being the lazy ass i was i just kept driving it instead of finding a better car to trade it in for, but for the first two years i owned it literaly nothing broke on it. when things finaly started to break the car already had another 40,000 miles on it (i drive great distances to snowboard) so it had lost 40% of its resale value, plus it was teal so it wouldnt be an easy sell, plus it had aquired a dent from my impecable driving skills .

i guess year number 3 in the northeast being non-garage kept was just too much cause the cpi spider broke. i fixed it myself, and i did the full nut kit and spider, like 500 bucks or something rediculus. i probably realy only needed to replace the regulator but i wanted to make sure it would never happen again so i did the whole job.

it was fine for another half a year then the rad clogged cause of the infamous delco cap.

my starter failed too.

my airbox cover literaly feel apart, i rigged it up with duct tape and it works perfectly fine now, but whats a potential buyer going to say when they open the hood and see the airbox literaly held together with duct tape?

my water pump seal failed, i replaced the water pump all together since it was only 30 bucks.

the head unit died also

my blazer hasnet actualy been that bad in terms of maintanace cost, because i alwasy kept very good care of it and my gparents always took care of it it still runs perfect to this day. it has never even come close to stranding me and i drive it great distnaces. all the electronics work perfect, the leather is even realy durable, although it feels more like plastic than leather. had i only did the injector pump regulator, that would bring the cost of non-routine maintanance to about 450 dollars for almost 4 years, thats insanely efficent for an 11 year old american truck in the north east parked in the elements. its even more insane for a 95 blazer.

now with all that having been said, the same maintanance would have cost literaly thousands more to someone who had no idea how to fix a car themselfs. imagine how much a shop would charge some poor single mom if she brought her blazer in with a blown regulator, they would probably charge her a thousand dollars and tell her its some crazy problem. shops are the scum of the earth (usualy). i have witnessed shop gouging of unbelevable purportions. nowhere is the flaw of capitalism more evident then when you see someone take such advantage of someone else when they are in their most dire time of need. im not saying capitalism is wrong, but somone needs to set up an agency to keep these shops honest and actualy enforce it.

i know three other dudes in my development that have blazers, one actualy owned 3. every last one of them has problems. ones windows just break randomly sometimes, and dies randomy at stops. ones tranny is dying. the kid who had three had bad trannies on all of them and starting probs.

i atribute my good fortune on my ability to eficently trouble shoot and fix my blazer, and the fact that i allways stay current with all my routine maintanance, but mostly because it was an O.K. car that never felt salt or sub zero temps till 2003 and was driven by an old lady (basicaly all luck) and that its 2wd. i am a firm beleiver that even (most) american cars can last jsut as long as japanese cars with only slightly higher maintanence costs, they just require a little more tlc. the problem is that most people have no idea how to make an american truck last 300,000 miles. (on the flip side, i know someone whos 85 f150 sierra edition still runs perfectly fine with 400,000 miles on it and has never had a major problem ever. all it ever got was oil changes and new brake lines once, that was it)

also, whats the price of all those wasted weekends pulling your truck apart, whats the price of all those hours you spend scrubbing the net for info on how to diagnose and fix your car? that is actualy more anoying than the money for me. all the repairs cost almost nothign cause i did them myself, but there were soooo many little fixes i had to do. fixing the mirror switch, bolting on a new sway bar bracket, all those things take time and effort, and if some poor shmuck who didnt know anything about cars had these problems he would pay out the ass for them.

today after i finished putting on my new water pump i asked my mom if she would match me if i bought a less dicy car. she said yes so im actualy finaly going to be able to drive something that fits my needs. i figure i can get 4 grand for my blazer cause its only got 80,000 miles and still runs flawlessly, ill plop down 2 grand and mama dukes will plop down another 2 so my budget will be around 8 grand.

with that 8 grand im thinking about a v6 accord, a maxima, or a saab '99 9-3 se high output. the saab is obviously not maintanance free but it is still more reliable than the blazer. hear me out. the previous generation of saabs (t5) are actualy very durable. the '99 9-3 had the engine of the t5, but has the exterior styling of the current generation (t7). it was the only year they did it, they changed the exterior styling in 99 and changed all the cars over to the new guts except the 9-3, it got t7 guts in 2000. the t7 generation is crap, some of the worst cars money can buy. they have sludge and ignition problems that the company hasent even been able to figur out hot to fix yet. but because the t7 generation is so shitty it actualy affects the t5 generations resale value, even though the t5s are great cars. not as worry free as a jap car, id say about half way between an american car and a jap car. you can get a 99 9-3 se for 5 grand, and they are awsome, fast, safe cars. with the saab at least id be wokring on a car that has 4 airbags, is very safe, goes 140 easy, handels well and can pull chicks. all my car knowledge will go to pimping out the turbo and modding it instead of simply preventing it from killing itself, like my blazer. what i realy want is a 2001 rsx type s but they start at 12 grand, little out of my range at the moment. acura has something like 20 major problems reported for every 100 cars. that measn that 80% of acuras HAVE NEVER HAD A MAJOR PROBLEM, EVER! in contrast american makers range from around 70 to 120. mercedes has like 170 as its average.

do your homework before you buy a car, and for gods sake dont get a blazer. if you want a small SUV get a 4 runner or a forester. there is a reason consumer reports ranks the blazer as one of the used cars to avoid at all costs. consumer reports sample sizes are a little small and incompleet to rely on unquestionably, but for the blazer they nailed it.

[agcneo]

oh most deff. but i would do alot of things differently. such as.... not take it offroading like i have, and beat the piss out of it. i wouldnt sink it in a pond. would have ran full synthetic from the day i bought it. wouldnt mow over trees with it and trashcans, basicly if i kept it in the condition i bought it in i would be thrilled with it. thats when it was gettin 16mpg. now im down somewhere bout 8-10 ona good day

[BlazerLT]

I hate to say it, but my truck is wearing me thin.

I love it, it is perfect for me, but the maintanence is getting to me.

New car coming soon, and you will know what the word HEMI will mean.

[corning_d3]

No.. I took a good '99 4X4 a few years back and trashed it in 1 month. It had problems from the get-go, though.. I don't need an SUV:-)...

[Sergeia]

98 loaded up to the roof ,.Spent so much time and money .....definetly worsest vehicle I ever owned ....if somebody thinking of buying one ....don't

[wafrederick]

The S10 blazers ride like crap and the gas mileage sucks.My mother had one and my father hated it.Got rid of and did get a 1999 Jeep Grand Chrerokee instead that rode a lot better with better gas mileage.If you do not want a S10 blazer,look into a Jeep Grand Cherokee

[chris15706]

Those jeep grand cherokees are alot nicer . But their more expensive. Thats why i got the blazer. Its not really a rough ride at all. Just remember its a truck.

[FantasticChadwick]

Whoever started this thread should have included a poll option. I'm too lazy to go back and count all the yes's and no's. What's that say about my character? ouch....