PontiacBonnevilleClub.com

Picked up this time capsule from 2001 recently.

This '01 Blazer LT belonged to a 75 yr old client of mine who was looking to upgrade and not stick any more maintenance into it. Currently has 97k miles, he bought it from an elderly couple at 30k who bought it new. Loaded with most of the options, but no leather. Just pristine inside and out, I've never seen one this nice. Runs and drives like new too. I had some front end work done, oil cooler hoses, brakes, and gave it a quick vacuum but this is nearly the way I bought it! All the original manuals, remotes, keys, and window sticker too.

Just had to share!

















Don't know if the back seat has ever been sat in....the velour is still "crunchy" lol.





Not even any gouges in the plastic sills for the doors or trunk. He had a piece of cardboard over the carpet all the time to protect it.











Door jams don't even have a bubble anywhere...

WOW!! That thing is amazingly clean!! Especially for living in the rust belt! If it were a GMT800 that clean, might have to add it to the fleet.

No kidding huh! I love it. You always see these things run into the ground.

Looks good, my friend just test drove a Blazer a couple weeks ago. Just as clean as that one but much more rare. ZR2 package and manual transmission.

94SilverSSEi wrote:WOW!! That thing is amazingly clean!! Especially for living in the rust belt! If it were a GMT800 that clean, might have to add it to the fleet.

I actually know of one here in my town. Elderly guy, he owns 2 - one for summer, one for winter. The summer one is a pristine burgandy colored '96-97 Tahoe LS with 60k miles, showroom condition. Would love to get my hands on it someday.

haro1225 wrote:Looks good, my friend just test drove a Blazer a couple weeks ago. Just as clean as that one but much more rare. ZR2 package and manual transmission.

Nice! They're definitely hard to come by in good shape. So many people ran them into the ground. That's an especially rare combo - this one isn't anything special in terms of rarity. And it's Pewter....meh!! I sware GM made a bulk deal with the paint companies to paint 75% of all GM's from late 90's to present in Pewter. When I bought my Avalanche and when I got my parents to buy a Yukon recently, we both refused to buy anything Pewter (or in my case, white also).

That is indeed a very fine example of a Blazer. Even the carpet in the cargo area is manicured!

That is almost as clean as my '95 was. Albeit I bought mine new and it sat in the garage and was polished routinely and the interior, other than the drivers seat, never sat in, and fully protected by plastic and sheets.

But yea, typically they're driven into the ground.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-skkub ... pp=desktop

Relevant, but these things weren't known for durability.

This ones mighty clean tho, I'd put it in a 90's museum.

OUtside of "Spider" fuel systems, the 4.3 is a Chevy Small Block V8 with two cylinders lobbed off. Doesn't get more reliable than that.

And before you start in, I worked on them for a living in a Chevy dealership. I know them (as well as most other common GM vehicles), inside, out, and upside down.

I don't remember how many of these Blazers I have worked on and seen go through the dealership in the past few years, but no matter how well they are taken care of, they go through front end parts on a regular basis.
Yours looks nice, but you have already had to replace front end parts, and it won't be the last time, either.
Good luck.

Leon

I think part of the issue is that you always see them in service. Well yea. When you sell 3 trillion of them over 15 - 20 years, chances are a few will come back to be serviced. Throw enough poop at a wall, something eventually sticks.

Our gen of full sizers love chewing through front end parts too. Can't count how many we manipulated VIN's in Reynolds and Reynolds to "goodwill" warranty them.

I just now, after 147k on my 98 Sierra, replaced the pitman and idler arm, I think that is pretty good mileage.
Ball joints and tie rods are still the originals.

Back to the Blazers, it's almost a given, that when we get one in the shop for unrelated issues, we can find the front end loose as a goose.
I have yet to see one come in for a simple oil change and NOT be loose. To me, that's enough to never want to own one, (not that they ever interested me in the first place).

Same here at the shop where I work at, we chuckle any time a GM truck comes in that hasn't been in before or in a long time - we can pretty much assume idler and pitman arms are loose.

This Blazer I'm just reselling - I don't have any use for it, and though it's interesting because of condition, and they're pretty solid rigs reliability wise, I fail to see the point of them. They handle poorly, don't have a ton of space, are fairly unrefined, and offer a best of about 18-19 MPG highway. I'd much rather drive a Tahoe and get that mileage.

Yeah, on that video review - though I'm no Blazer fanboy and never have been, his version of unreliability sounds a little skewed. About 90% of the stuff on his list is normal maintenance on the life of a 10-15+ yr old vehicles. Even the Camrys and Accords of the world need spark plugs, belts, O2 sensors, wheel bearings, water pump, etc.....all normal wear.

Leon, I guess that is where I respectfully disagree. Like you, working on them daily, but also having owned several of them (so I guess I’m a fanboi of them).

I would say that you’re confusing normal, routine, bugs, issues, maladies that can happen with age/mileage, with massive vehicle faults that would leave you stranded or cost thousands to replace because of an engineering flaw.

The laundry list of loose front ends (ball joints, pitmans, etc), as well as “W” motor “spiders”, Kelsey-Hayes ABS modulator issues, weak 10 bolt rear ends, automatic transfer case (the position sensor), hub locking/unlocking engagement issues, and notorious fuel pumps (which also plague the full-size trucks), I would classify as those normal, routine, bugs, issues, and maladies. I would also throw in the cheaper plastic Little-Tikes interior issues too, but the Bonneville can also be subject to that and perhaps aged 4.3’s and their valve stem seal issues (but that’s a SBC V8 issue too… The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree).

As such, I (as well as anyone here), could create a thorough laundry list that plague the Bonneville (both 3800 V6 and N* versions). After laying out that list, based on your viewpoints on S-Series trucks, you would probably NOT want to buy a Bonneville if you were on the outside looking in. I’ll start off with the biggie… Blown head gaskets and studding issues on Northstars. That’s a pretty big friggin issue by comparison to a couple loose ball joints! I’m speaking purely talking from a problem that arose, through to the cost of repair to get the vehicle back on the road again. To replace those loose parts on the front end of a Blazer, what, an hour? The time and cost to remove a N*, remove the heads, clean (perhaps deck both surfaces if need be, which would then require sending it all out to an engine builder/machine shop), re-stud it, and re-install everything and put it all back in the car??

The S-Series trucks are far from perfect, but have a reasonably stout engine in the 4.3, have a standard fare 4L60/65E that GM has been using since the dawn of Adam (in one way or another even before electronics), and overall a pretty stout frame (especially the boxed center section), for this class of a vehicle, which I personally think was better than anything in a comparable vintage exploder or a uni-body structured Jeep Cherokee/Grand Cherokee.

To this day, the one I miss in particular is my ’94 Olds Bravada. That “W” motor lacked the refinement of my ’95 Blazer with the “W” (due to it’s counter balance shaft), but that was the last year of the perferred box body style, SmarTrak, and of course the spiffed up interior and the digital dash, etc…