Im buying a 99 s10 as a commuter vehicle for my drive to work. V6 - 120000+ miles. For anyone with any experience with the trucks what are some of the things I should keep an eye on and/or have fixed right off the bat.

they are tiny

is 99 a dexcool year?

4.3 is a great motor.

Rest of the truck...not so much.

Hate to say this but you can do better...

Probably so but its just gonna be my beater that i use for work, Im expecting to put some work into it. As long as the engine and tranny dont give out after a month of use I'll be fine.. Im only paying $2000 for it

As long as you're not getting the terrible "Vortec 2200" I4, you should be OK. Chevy's worst engine ever.

I've had several 4.3 S-trucks. The most annoying thing that I encountered was getting fuel in west Texas. These things run like ASS on 85 octane.

Reminds me...I took the V to Odessa once, couldn't find 93 octane anywhere...highest they had was 91

The higher the altitude, the less need for high octane, correct?

For $2000 that's a great deal. The 4.3 is reliable and there aren't any major problems you need to fix preemptively to avoid catastrophe, like Honda timing belts or (certain) Ford spark plugs.

The problems I've seen most frequently on message boards (not that they're extremely common, just most frequently reported) are the fuel injector "spider" leaking (the part in the manifold that feeds the six injectors) and the intake manifold gasket. That, and the fuel pump that seems to go out on a lot of Chevy trucks after a decade or so of service. All of those are pretty obvious if you have them, and if not, don't worry about it!

It would probably be a good idea to do all the 60k maintenance stuff since you just hit 120k, unless you have proof the previous owner did it. If you replace the spark plugs, stick with AC Delco.

Beyond that, there's stuff that wears out on any truck of that age... alternator, ball joints, heater core... if it breaks, fix it, but no need to preemptively do anything.

can a V6 have a spider?

I thought that was exclusive to V8s

Yup. the V6s had the fuel "spider" but it only had 6 legs. LOL.

S10s also had lots of front end problems, idler/pitman arm issues, control arm bushings etc.

So the V6 had more of a fuel insect...

I thought my alternator was going out, because the battery light was coming on and turning off periodically. But I had steady voltage and no electrical issues, so I checked under the hood and a connector coming off one of the batter wires was loose.