Other electrical problem on the 1997 Chevrolet Blazer
11 fires 1 injury 12 of the 36 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.
When other electrical problem gets reported
Owners of the 1997 Chevrolet Blazer report other electrical problem at a median of 100,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 70,000 miles and a quarter after 150,000 miles, from 13 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 85,000 miles. It is the 7th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 20,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 170,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 151,800 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
A spread this wide points at use rather than design. Towing, climate, service history and city mileage all move a failure like this, so the median is a weak guide to any individual car.
15% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20,000 miles | 70,000 miles | 98,000 miles | 148,000 miles | 171,800 miles |
Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.
What a percentile can and cannot tell you here
These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.
What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.
Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.
What happens, and what it costs
Of these reports, 11 a fire and 1 an injury are mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.
Putting it right typically runs $250–$2,000 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 13 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2021, at a median of 20,000 miles, and latest on the 2000 at 130,000 miles.
By volume the 1996 carries the most reports, with 42; the 1997 has 36. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.
If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
1997 chevrolet blazer, when passing a semi on interstate, vehicle acted like it was missing, after passing, looked in mirror, saw smoke, pulled over, popped hood engine on fire unable to put out with extinguisher...fire engulfed vehicle, completely totaling it. *ak
I have a 97 blazer 4x4 with a little over 113k miles. I've been having problems with the voltage (I think) for a while now. The voltage meter swings from just above 9v to over 14v when I stop at a traffic light. I'm convinced the gauge is not to blame because when I put a load on it, it indicates 9v to 10.5v, the dash lights dim, the headlights wil also dim. I've already replaced (3) altenators and the battery twice which in 4 months and everything is still the same. The gauge will read just above 14v when I'm am driving the truck with no problem but the minute I stop at a traffic light the voltage gauge drops down to 9v or 10.5v depending on what accessories am runnning on my truck. Temperature and frequency between trips seems to not make a difference either. The only thing I have done to the truck even remotely connected to the electrical system is to swap the radio, but I used a wire harness to connect the wiring. I've checked and will recheck tonight for loose wires or bad grounds, but other than that I'm lost. Any help? *nm
Driver's side rear view mirror switch wiring caught on fire. My husband had to tear the door panel up to keep my blazer from burning up. Gm refuses to fix this under the recall because my VIN number does not fall in the sequence of those that were recalled for this defect. My interior dome light caught on fire as well. My husband had to pull off the cover and break the bulb out of the housing to keep the blazer from burning. Dealer will probably refuse to fix this as well. *tr
Also reported on the 1997 Chevrolet Blazer
Control arm, ball joint or bushing failure
Wiper or washer failure
ABS module or sensor failure
Other powertrain problem
Other engine problem
Water pump failure
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 36 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Questions this page answers
At what mileage does other electrical problem happen on the 1997 Chevrolet Blazer?
Across 13 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 100,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 70,000 miles and a quarter after 150,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is other electrical problem on the 1997 Chevrolet Blazer?
36 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.5 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.
What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed