My g/f just bought Trailblazer and her friends which all drive Imports (mostly Toyota's) are calling it a GM POS with alot of recalls. I know initially they had issues like the engine casting was wrong on the first batch and on the upstroke the piston was coming just over the bores tossing out the rings in the process. Also there was something with the transmission. Has all the been fixed for the most part?

BTW she is very happy with it, she says the 6 cylinder is very "peppy"

 

I don't know on the '03's.

Autoweek had a horrid time with theirs, but it was an early '02. I have also been reading on some of the truck sites about the trucks just deciding to switch to 4wd while driving down the freeway at 75mph This does not seem to be uncommon, however I have only seen people with the '02's reporting this.

I wish her the best of luck. Your best way to find out is to go to Edmunds and look in the forums. There will be a specific Trailblazer/Envoy/Bravada problems forum. This should be able to answer your questions better.

 

I like those little trucks !

I have to laugh, though - I keep seeing them advertised as V-6's !!


I do know that you can get 8's in some of them, now.


My .02 !



Britt

 

Funny you call it little...I was just thinking the other day how I wouldn't want anything bigger

 

As I have a '91 Subuurban, yes , IMHO it is small.

Dam thing ( Trailblazer ) weighs like 4400 lbs, though, so she's got some metal in her !!

Weird, too - the new full size Chevy trucks don't look as good to my eye as the GMC version, yet the Trailblazer is miles ahead appearance wise than the Envoy.



Heck, I am even starting to like the look's of Caddies CTS.

Must be all the Zep commercials !!


Britt

 

Yea - I'm going to have to call "BS" on that claim. Methinks the piston and the head would be having a brief but intimate discussion before the rings ever got a chance to leave the bore There may be some other engine problem, but I haven't heard of them.

Haven't heard of any transmission problems other than the fact that it's a 4L60E in a relatively heavy vehicle, so expect to replace it before you hit 100K.

The biggest problem upon launch had to do with the lower control arms - there was a casting problem of some sort, and it was corrected after the first 6,000 vehicles. It was a big deal when the truck first came out, but primarily because of all the attention on recalls and launch failures from a certain Dearborn-based manufacturer around the same time.

 

Thats what the dealer told us...I admittedly havent researched it much. He said they replaced pretty much every engine in the intial run they sold. I also know there was one recall I thought that had to do with the transmission where GM told owners to park the truck and a dealer would come pivk it up...

 

That was the infamous lower control arm recall.

 

I just bought an '03 with the I6 and i love it so far. Every person who I have given a ride to was suprised(most being import lovers...dare I call them people? ) with the ride/power/feel/interior/build/look of it. the Trailblazer is a badass SUV. No problems here and no recalls for my TB. sounds like your girlfriends import loving friends are ignorant and viewing the world through import goggles.

 

I wondered if GM could introduce an entirely new engine without a hitch. Apparently the answer is a qualified "no." Anyway, I'm confused about the Atlas engine family. The I-5 has too little torque, and the I-6 is expensive and rev-happy to be a total replacement for the 4.3 liter V6.

It makes me wonder if GM wouldn't have been smarter to have stuck with 4.8 and 5.3 liter V8s in the Trailblazer. After all, V8s are great for marketing.

The last company that tried to market an Inline-6 as a V8 competitor was Hudson. Since the last time I saw a Hudson Hornet was when I watched "Driving Miss Daisy," the sales pitch must not have worked too well.

 

Dude, you need to drive or own one before you talk! Being the owner of an 2002 Envoy for over a year now, I can tell you that the I6 is amazing and has plenty of ***** for being in such a heavy vehicle!!!

You don't think other engines, cars have problems when introduced???? Sheesh, you are blind.

Did you even realize that the I6 has won best engine engineering awards 2 years now?

As mentioned, yes, the initial TB's had the suspension issue, but that was taken care of.

How quick some are to judge what they know little or nothing about!

 

Hehe don't worry about it, I've gotten used to tolerating redzed's opinions, however far off I think they may be. Hang out with us long enough and you will too.

 

As I said, go to Edmunds. The Trailblazer/Envoy/Bravada town hall is one of the busiest....... when I was there yesterday there were about 10,720 posts. It isn't in an easy to read set-up like this, but you can get the jest of what is going on.

The engines did have problems at the beginning. They are all aluminum blocks with sleeves in the cylinders. They were dropping sleeves. It was a very common problem at the beginning but was taken care of quickly (you would hope so with such a major problem).

The stop sale, don't drive your truck, have it towed to the dealership was the control arm issue.

After perusing a few pages at Edmunds there seem to be some issues. Very common issue is the door seals coming off (causing alot of wind noise). Another common one is the brake lights burning out. Seems as though the circuit boards are defective and not giving good contact to the bults, which is causing an arc. There are a few transmission issues, with some people who have had a trans redone early (10K-25K miles). There have also been some very common transfer case problems of various sorts. A lot of sqeakes and rattles......... that kind of stuff. A few water leaks from the firewall area. Oh, and quite a few stalling problems. One person had theirs stall on the freeway going 70mph....... kinda scary. They have been replacing the PCM for that problem, but tell the people that they don't know if that will fix it for good. BTW, stalling seems to be a common problem on a lot of new vehicles. I think some of it has to do with all of these new emissions things.

I looked through about 10 pages maybe.

Now understand that it will look bad there because that is why people are posting there...... to try to find out about their problems. This is the underlying theme of most web sites. If you looked at any web site for any manufacturer, you would come away thinking every car on earth is built like crap. For me, all it tells me is things to be aware of.

However my favorite line from any web site is this..... "I have only had it into the dealership 15 times this year, and been without if for only 45 days while they fixed stuff....... but I sure love this ________ (insert your favorite vehicle here)." These people are nuts !!!!!

 

I bought an 02 TB in November 01 when all the great financing started after 9/11. Mine had just been built in Oct 01 and I never had any issue with the motor at all, it's the best part of the truck as far as I'm concerned. I did have an issue for a while with the 4wd selector switch, mine decided to jump into 4wd on it's own a few times, once at highway speed which was troubling. It took the dealer three attempts to fix it, they replaced the selector switch on the dash, then the switch on the transfer case and finally the dash switch again But they finally fixed it.

Other than that issue I've been very happy with the truck overall. That I6 is an incredible motor, that thing will scream and pulls hard all the way to redline. I got the 3:73's with mine which really helps get it going from a stop. The 4L60E shifts very nice as well. If anyone with the I6 is looking for a good mod for it try this one Just remove that big, useless, plastic air silencer piece over the air filter. Then find something to plug the one hole just up the tube from the filter ( I used a black rubber ball cut in half and secured with a zip strap) And installed a K&N replacement filter ($55) It really helps the motor breath better with that silencer cover off, much better throttle response and the motor sounds a lot better under hard accelleration. Good mod

 

You must not own an inline-6 EXT model. The heavier long-wheelbase model is pretty marginal on power with anything but the optional V8. Even then, these "mini-Suburbans" are cumbersome enough to make you wish for a Tahoe. There again, I feel the same way about all of the Trailblazer/Envoy models. For example, MSRP on a Trailblazer LTZ is pretty alarming, and Stabilitrak is no where to found on the options lists of any of these vehicles. These are traditional mid-sized SUVs, period.

The inline-6 was an interesting engineering move, but I really have to wonder if high-specific horsepower is more important than torque in the SUV market. Since I've been looking admiringly at some of the runout Dodge Durangos V8s, I must be a torque lover. These vehicles are cheaper than dirt at the moment, and are more offroadable to boot. Sure, the elderly Durango can't compare on refinement to Trailblazer/Envoy, but the Honda Pilot sure can - and the Nissan Murano is about the most comfortable ute yet.

Isn't it amazing how GM's lead in mid-sized SUVs has been eroded in a relatively short period of time? Maybe this isn't the time to slack off in SUVs and trucks.