Ding, Dong, The Blazer’s Gone!

As they say, all good things must come to an end. In my case it’s the legacy that has been the eight years of owning my Chevy Blazer. To be honest, it hasn’t been THAT bad of a vehicle. In it’s history, I had to have some warranty work done on her just at the end of the warranty period. I had a bad bearing in one of the wheels which was making a ton of noise and scaring me senseless while driving.

Over the eight years, she gave me 158,000 miles of traveling. For the most part everything was ok… Except for a couple of things…

• Early on, the seat adjustment lever for the drivers side kept falling off. I eventually just left it and hadn’t used it again.
• There was a panel that had the hatch release and hatch windshield wiper controls that popped out and wouldn’t go back into the dash. (the pins had broken off) It reminded me of a Stephen King movie where a corpse was walking around with it’s eyeball popped from the socket dangling by the optic nerve. (Sorry about the graphic visualization, but it’s fairly accurate minus the gore.)
• There was a tray that you could hold change in that again, the pins broke off and the whole thing would fly out of it’s holder when I would make a tight turn.
• Both the tray and the panel were temporarily fixed with tack putty and eventually permanently fixed with super glue.
• The windshield wipers would work when they felt like it. I would sometimes have to drive several miles before the wipers would begin working again. Thank God for Rainex to bead up the rain on the windshield and make it easier for me to see without the blades running.
• The windshield cracked pretty badly a year ago during winter. After a particularly bad dumping of snow the melting then freezing snow filled in a small chip and turned it into the grand canyon across the windshield. (We didn’t bother spending $200 to replace it.)
• If I would drive further than 35 miles in one setting the transmission would have issues going from first to second. A lurch would occur scaring myself and any passengers I may have had onboard at the time.
• A couple years ago, I was driving to a meeting at work and suddenly found steering control very difficult as if I had a flat tire. I quickly pulled over to assess the problem. I looked at my drivers side tire and found that it was leaning inward at about a 25 degree angle. A connection broke that holds the wheel in place. I also found out that there was more damage to the other wheel but it wasn’t an immediate danger. We fixed the wheel having the problem and let the other stuff go.

Now that I've itemized it like this, I guess I did have a number of issues with it. Considering our Toyota Avalon has only had a flat tire... once.

Thankfully nothing ever happened with the vehicle causing any accidents. We could have pumped over $2000 into it to keep her running well, but out expanding family would not have fit into my “single-guy” blazer. The 2 doors and the rear bucket seats do not allow for 2 car seats and a 7-year-old to fit legally or at all…

So the Quest for a new vehicle began.

We finally decided to modify our situation and NOT get a brand new vehicle. We really liked the new Honda Pilot and the Toyota Highlander, but the cost was more than we were willing to pay. So we started checking out the Certified Pre-Owned (used) vehicles. We ended up finding one with low mileage and all the features we wanted for below the blue book price. No complaints from us!

Holly and Jonah picked up the new Toyota Highlander and turned in the Blazer. Holly asked me if it bothered me getting rid of the vehicle. To a certain extent the vehicle was a reminder of how my life was changing around the time of getting a new job and buying my new vehicle. I’m not much for nostalgia on physical items, although I’m a packrat at heart. But seeing her go was a little bitter sweet. I no longer have to worry about driving an unsafe vehicle for both my safety and my family.

The vehicle had not passed it’s safety inspection and didn’t have new registration because of it. Hence my uneasiness every time I would pass a police officer on the road. That is a thing of the past.

So I’m happy to get to drive the Avalon while Holly uses the Highlander. We may swap every now and then, but that’s how my parents used to work their vehicles. My Mom would use the new car, and my Dad would get the older one. I have no complaints, because now I have a moon roof…