Model years › Chevrolet Trailblazer

2006 Chevrolet Trailblazer

Complaints about this year name gauge far more often than the model's other years — 47% of them, about 118× the usual rate of 0.4%.

NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.

What the complaints were about

• gauge — 47% of this year's complaints, against 1.8% across the model's other years (25.8×).
• fuel — 47.1% of this year's complaints, against 4.4% across the model's other years (10.6×).
• empty — 32.2% of this year's complaints, against 1.5% across the model's other years (21.6×). Owners wrote it as: empty, reads empty, read empty, full empty.

Words owners used for the same problem are counted together, so a fault written four different ways is measured once. Grouped by which complaints they appear in, not by a list anyone wrote in advance.

Also unusual this year

• fuel — 47% of complaints, 25× usual
• empty — 32% of complaints, 81× usual
• fuel gauge — 30% of complaints, 75× usual

What owners wrote

ERRATIC FUEL GAUGE FOR COUPLE OF DAYS AND ABRUPT ENGINE POWER LOSS, FUEL GAUGE STAYED BELOW EMPTY MARK EVEN AFTER FULL FILL UP.

FUEL GAUGE IS GOING CRAZY. WHEN I FILL IT WITH FUEL IT WILL SOMETIMES REGISTER EMPTY AND YELLOWLIGHT INDICATOR COMES ON. IT GOES UP AND DOWN ALL THE TIME.

Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.

Recalls for this year

• 15V519000 EXTERIOR LIGHTING Fixed free of charge.
• 14V404000 VISIBILITY Fixed free of charge.
• 15V599000 VISIBILITY Fixed free of charge.
• 12V406000 ELECTRICAL SYSTEM
• 13V248000 ELECTRICAL SYSTEM Fixed free of charge.
• 05V455000 STEERING
• 05V552000 EQUIPMENT
• 06V417000 AIR BAGS

Own a 2006 Chevrolet Trailblazer? What happened to yours?

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How this was worked out

Every year of the Chevrolet Trailblazer was compared against its own history rather than against other cars, which removes popularity and age from the answer — a common car draws more complaints at equal reliability, and an older one has had longer to accumulate them. A year is flagged when it drew at least 2.5× this model's median and at least 50 complaints.

This is a fault record, not a review. Nobody files a federal complaint to say the car was fine, so it shows what tends to go wrong — not whether owners liked it, and not whether it is a good car.

Source: NHTSA complaints, recalls and investigations, retrieved . Look this vehicle up directly on NHTSA's site to check anything here.

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