2004 Trailblazer 4.2 - Newest Member of the Family

[Nick1994]

It is nice, they did a good job (I think and hope it stays that way). While I had the dash panel off I installed a new radio with BT and CarPlay. Yes it's generic junk, yes it was cheap, and yes it's better than the original one haha.

The only thing is, now that I have a working temp gauge... she runs a little warmer than I'd expect I took a 10 minute drive and this is where the temperature was... a bit above halfway. I don't remember ever having it go above halfway on the Envoy so I don't think this is normal.

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This is what we had with the Trailblazer, and poor A/C performance at idle. Bad fan clutch.

Though A/C performance was poor at 110*+ outside.

 

[dogememe]

This is what we had with the Trailblazer, and poor A/C performance at idle. Bad fan clutch.

Though A/C performance was poor at 110*+ outside.

Yeah, it's 67F out, I don't think it should be getting too toasty. AC performance is lame at best. It's cold-ish.

Guess I'll throw a fan clutch at it. Genuine GM is $173 on Rockauto. Do you think that's worth it or can I go aftermarket?

 

[4WD]

This is what we had with the Trailblazer, and poor A/C performance at idle. Bad fan clutch.

Though A/C performance was poor at 110*+ outside.

How about that with a new $100K Jeep Bling-O -Ne’er - and I grew up putting tire chains on Jeep’s old woody’s to do deep mud …
HVAC sucks on them … (Jeep owner now) …

 

[dogememe]

How about that with a new $100K Jeep Bling-O -Ne’er - and I grew up putting tire chains on Jeep’s old woody’s to do deep mud …
HVAC sucks on them … (Jeep owner now) …

Really? It's that bad? I honestly didn't think there was any vehicle made in the past 10 years that had lousy AC. AC has been standard for so long I took it for granted they had it figured out.

 

[dishdude]

Double check the temp with a scan tool, new cluster could be off.

 

[dogememe]

Double check the temp with a scan tool, new cluster could be off.

In Dorman We Trust. But yeah, good idea. Will check at work.

 

[4WD]

Really? It's that bad? I honestly didn't think there was any vehicle made in the past 10 years that had lousy AC. AC has been standard for so long I took it for granted they had it figured out.

Well, brand new rental from National and 4 of us on a business trip going what the —— (I can post here) …
In fact - the locals said we have a 2018 4WD Tahoe full of gas - and we had long gravel roads to drive on - that AC was awesome …

 

[bullwinkle]

Looks nice. Everyone I know who had one of these was happy with them.

, ,

everyone i know who bought one of these had nothing but endless problems

My brother's '07 Trail Blazer (4.2) is some of both... He likes it, but several wheel bearing failures, thermostat, A/C compressor, hard on (17"=$$$) tires & a 4L60E rebuild later... Think it's around 170K now-and needs a cluster rebuild, some front bumper repair, and the usual GM rust coming on!

 

[bullwinkle]

Well at work it was either Dorman or Cardone and both are trash so I went with Dorman as it could arrive quicker. It will be here later today

Car-Done is the worst of all, I've had reman PS pumps from them that would take 3 tries before one was good! Dorman-at least you have a chance!

 

[bullwinkle]

Well, brand new rental from National and 4 of us on a business trip going what the —— (I can post here) …
In fact - the locals said we have a 2018 4WD Tahoe full of gas - and we had long gravel roads to drive on - that AC was awesome …

The ones with rear A/C are night & day-the '11 in my sig is like a mobile walk-in cooler; the company '13 Class C box truck & '19 cargo (all Chevy Express vans) can barely keep a driver cooled off!

 

[D60]

I was also going to say use a scanner to look at actual live data.

I don't think the older stuff suffered from this, but I just found on our GMT900 LMM the gauge reads 210 pretty much all the time. I think it's deliberate because that's pure vertical and they want the gauges to read at 12 o'clock under "normal" conditions. Thus anything earlier is low, anything "later" is high. Makes for an easy visual sweep in theory.

I had just installed new t-stats (the Dmaxs use two, of course) and was puzzled. But on live data it was at ~188 which is t-stat temp.

TL;DR: live date jived with t-stat rating. Gauge wanted to read at 12 o'clock which is more like 210.

 

[Nick1994]

Yeah, it's 67F out, I don't think it should be getting too toasty. AC performance is lame at best. It's cold-ish.

Guess I'll throw a fan clutch at it. Genuine GM is $173 on Rockauto. Do you think that's worth it or can I go aftermarket?

These are the one car you MUST go OEM on for the fan clutch. Lots of info in the GMT360 forums.

 

[350Rocket]

Yeah I don’t think anyone in a 2 hour radius of me would want to rebuild a gauge cluster and any further than that would cost me more in gas and time than just ordering the Dorman one for $250.

I sent mine away last xmas and drove around with a big empty gap in the dash for a bit. It will run fine without, I just had to top up the gas every 2 days and use Google maps to bill mileage when it didn't come back in time for work.

Got the blue lights and green needles and upgraded to an escalade overlay.

 

[slo town]

Sue and I had the Saab version of that. That 4.2 liter motor was very nice, and I'm hard to impress.

Scott

 

[dogememe]

Double check the temp with a scan tool, new cluster could be off.

So, this one is the winner. When it's one tick above 210 on the dash it's 190 coolant temp via OBD2, which is what it should be as the thermostat is 192. Dorman junk!

 

[D60]

So, this one is the winner. When it's one tick above 210 on the dash it's 190 coolant temp via OBD2, which is what it should be as the thermostat is 192. Dorman junk!

Well Dorman is junk but this may be normal as our bone stock GMT900 is the same way

 

[dogememe]

Well Dorman is junk but this may be normal as our bone stock GMT900 is the same way

Apparently the oil pressure gauges on these 4.2s is computer generated BS. It is an oil pressure switch that has two states - basically on or off. If off, the computer tells the gauge to go to 0. If on, the oil pressure is estimated by the computer and that's what the gauge shows as well. Apparently there is an OBD2 PID for oil pressure but it's BS as well. But the 5.3 got an actual oil pressure sensor. I wonder how much this saved them when building the car - $2? Software is cheaper than hardware!

Anyway, I got the new tires installed today. They're Vredestein Pinza ATs. Supposed to be an on-road all-terrain, but looking at them, mild off-roading should be no problem. $100 instant rebate on Tire Rack when I bought them and they also had a $120 mail-in rebate I applied for online today and should receive the VISA gift card in a couple months. Not bad!

 

[dogememe]

I did the oil change yesterday... WORST oil filter placement/access of any oil change I've ever done. How it's so bad on a vehicle whose engine was only used in this vehicle baffles me. Absolutely awful. I was so angry afterward and had to take a shower to get the oil off me.

 

[Nick1994]

I did the oil change yesterday... WORST oil filter placement/access of any oil change I've ever done. How it's so bad on a vehicle whose engine was only used in this vehicle baffles me. Absolutely awful. I was so angry afterward and had to take a shower to get the oil off me.

Is yours 4x4? I don't remember it being that bad

 

[D60]

I did the oil change yesterday... WORST oil filter placement/access of any oil change I've ever done. How it's so bad on a vehicle whose engine was only used in this vehicle baffles me. Absolutely awful. I was so angry afterward and had to take a shower to get the oil off me.

Did you go through the drain plug access or remove the weird shield on front of the xmember?

I'm 99.9% I did a couple oil changes on an '02 2wd and don't remember anything significant.