1996 GMC SIERRA Owners Manual

Understanding Radio Reception
FM Stereo
FM stereo will give you the best sound. But FM signals
will reach only about 10 to 40 miles (1 6 to 65 km). Tall
buildings or hills can interfere
with FM signals, causing
the sound
to come and go.
AM
The range for most AM stations is greater than for FM,
especially at night. The longer range, however, can
cause stations
to interfere with each other. AM can pick
up
noise from things like storms and power line?. Try
reducing the treble to reduce this noise
if you ever get it.
Tips About Your Audio System
Hearing damage from loud noise is almost undetectable
until it is too late. Your hearing can adapt to higher
volumes
of sound. Sound that seems normal can be loud
and harmful to your hearing. Take precautions by
adjusting the volume control
on your radio to a safe
sound level before
your hearing adapts to it.
To help avoid hearing loss or damage:
0 Adjust the volume control to the lowest setting.
increase volume slowly until you hear comfortably
and clearly.
NOTICE:
Before you add any sound equipment to your
vehicle
-- like a tape player, CB radio, mobile
telephone or two-way radio
-- be sure you can
add what you want.
If you can, it’s very important
to do it properly, Added sound equipment may
interfere with the operation
af your vehicle’s
engine, Delco radio
or other systems, and even
damage them. Your vehicle’s systems may
interfere with the operation
of sound equipment
that has been added improperly.
So, before adding sound equipment, check with
your dealer and be sure to check Federal rules
covering mobile radio and telephone units,
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Care of Your Cassette Tape Player
A tape player that is not cleaned regularly can cause
reduced sound quality, ruined cassettes
or a damaged
mechanism. Cassette tapes should be stored in their
cases away from contaminants, direct sunlight and
extreme heat. If they aren’t,
they may not operate
properly or may cause failure
of the tape player.
Your tape player should be cleaned regularly after every
50 hours of use. Your radio may display CLN to indicate
that
you have used your tape player for 50 hours without
resetting the tape clean timer.
If you notice a reduction in
sound quality, try a known good cassette to see if the tape
or the tape player is at fault. If this other cassette has no
improvement
in sound quality, clean the tape player.
Cleaning may be done with a scrubbing action,
non-abrasive cleaning cassette with pads which scrub
the tape head as the hubs
of the cleaner cassette turn. It
is normal for the cassette to eject while cleaning because
your unit is equipped with
a cut tape feature. To
temporarily override this feature (for one insertion), turn
the radio off and press and hold TAPE AUX until the
tape symbol flashes on the display, then insert
the
cassette again. Insert the cassette at least three times to
ensure thorough cleaning. A scrubbing action cleaning
cassette
is available through your GM dealer.
You may also choose a non-scrubbing action, wet-type
cleaner which uses a cassette with
a fabric belt to clean the
tape head. This type
of cleaning cassette will not eject. It
may not clean as thoroughly as the scrubbing type cleaner.
Cassettes are subject
to wear and the sound quality may
degrade over time. Always make sure that
the cassette
tape
is in good condition before you have your tape
player serviced.
Care of Your Compact Discs
Handle discs carefully. Store them in their original cases
or other protective cases and away from direct sunlight
and dust.
If the surface of a disc is soiled, dampen a
clean, soft cloth in
a mild, neutral detergent solution and
clean
it, wiping from the center to the edge.
Be sure never
to touch the signal surface when handling
discs. Pick up discs by grasping the outer edges or the
edge of the hole and the outer edge.
Fixed Mast Antenna
The fixed mast antenna can withstand most vehicle
washes without being damaged.
If the mast should ever
become slightly bent, you can straighten
it out by hand.
If the mast is badly bent,
as it might be by vandals, you
should replace it.
Check every once in a while to be sure the mast is still
tightened to the cowl.
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Section 4 Your Driving and the Road
Here you‘ll find information about driving on different
kinds
of roads and in varying weather conditions. We’ve
also included many other useful tips on driving.
Defensive Driving
The best advice anyone can give about driving is:
Drive defensively.
Please start with
a very important safety device in your
vehicle: Buckle up. (See “Safety Belts”
in the Index.)
Defensive driving really means “be ready
for anything.”
On city streets, rural roads or freeways, it means
“always expect the unexpected.”
Assume that pedestrians
or other drivers are going to be
careless and make mistakes. Anticipate what they might
do.
Be ready for their mistakes.
Rear-end collisions are about the most preventable
of
accidents. Yet they are common. Allow enough
following distance. It’s the best defensive driving
maneuver,
in both city and rural driving. You never
know when the vehicle
in front of you is going to brake
or turn suddenly.
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Drunken Driving
Death and injury associated with drinking and driving
is
a national tragedy. It’s the number one contributor to
the highway death toll, claiming thousands of victims
every year.
Alcohol affects four things that anyone needs to drive
a vehicle:
Judgment
Muscular Coordination
Vision
Attentiveness.
Police records show that almost half of all motor
vehicle-related deaths involve alcohol. In most cases,
these deaths are
the result of someone who was drinking
and driving. In recent years, some
18,000 annual motor
vehicle-related deaths have been associated with the use
of alcohol, with more than 300,000 people injured.
Many adults
-- by some estimates, nearly half the
adult population
-- choose never to drink alcohol, so
they never drive after drinking. For persons under 2 1,
it’s against the law in every US. state to drink alcohol.
There are good medical, psychological and
developmental reasons for these laws.
The obvious way to solve this highway safety problem
is for people never to drink alcohol and then drive. But
what
if people do? How much is “too much” if the
driver plans to drive? It’s
a lot less than many might
think. Although
it depends on each person and situation,
here is some general information
on the problem.
The Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC)
of someone
who is drinking depends upon four things:
The amount of alcohol consumed
0 The drinker’s body weight
The amount of food that is consumed before and
during drinking
The length of time it has taken the drinker to
consume the alcohol.
According to
the American Medical Association, a
180-lb. (82 kg) person who drinks three 12-ounce
(355 ml) bottles of beer in an hour will end up with a
BAC of about 0.06 percent. The person would reach the
same
BAC by drinking three 4-ounce (I 20 ml) glasses
of wine or three mixed drinks if each had I - 1/2 ounces
(45 ml) of a liquor like whiskey, gin or vodka.
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It’s the amount of alcohol that counts. For example, if
the same person drank three double martinis (3 ounces
or
90 ml of liquor each) within an hour, the person’s
BAC would be close
to 0.12 percent. A person who
consumes food just before or during drinking will have
a
somewhat lower BAC level.
There is a gender difference, too. Women generally have
a lower relative percentage of body water than men.
Since alcohol is carried in body water, this means that a
woman generally will reach
a higher BAC level than a
man of her same body weight when each has the same
number
of drinks.
The law
in many U.S. states sets the legal limit at a BAC
of 0.10 percent. In a growing number of U.S. states, and
throughout Canada, the limit is
0.08 percent. In some
other countries, it’s even lower. The
BAC limit for all
commercial drivers
in the United States is 0.04 percent.
The
BAC will be over 0.10 percent after three to six
drinks
(in one hour). Of course, as we’ve seen, it
depends on how much alcohol is in the drinks, and how
quickly the person drinks them.
But
the ability to drive is affected well below a BAC
of
0.10 percent. Research shows that the driving skills
of many people are impaired at a BAC approaching
0.05 percent, and that the effects are worse at night. All
drivers are impaired at BAC levels above
0.05 percent.
Statistics show that the chance
of being in a collision
increases sharply for drivers who have
a BAC of
0.05 percent or above. A driver with a BAC level of
0.06 percent has doubled his or her chance of having a
collision. At a BAC level of 0.10 percent, the chance of
this driver having a collision is 12 times greater; at a
level
of 0.15 percent, the chance is 25 times greater!
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The body takes about an hour to rid itself of the alcohol
in
one drink. No amount of coffee or number of cold
showers will speed that up.
“I’ll be careful” isn’t the
right answer. What
if there’s an emergency, a need to
take sudden action, as when a child darts into the street?
A person with even a moderate BAC might not be able
to react quickly enough to avoid the collision.
There’s something else about drinking and driving that
many people don’t know. Medical research shows that
alcohol
in a person’s system can make crash injuries
worse, especially injuries to the brain, spinal cord or
heart. This means that when anyone who has been
drinking
-- driver or passenger -- is in a crash, that
person‘s chance
of being killed or permanently disabled
is higher than if the person had
not been drinking.
A CAUTION: I
Drinking and then driving is very dangerous.
Your reflexes, perceptions, attentiveness and
judgment can be affected by even a small amount
of alcohol. You can have
a serious -- or even
fatal
-- collision if you drive after drinking.
Please don’t drink and drive
or ride with a driver
who has been drinking. Ride home in
a cab; or if
you’re with a group, designate a driver who will
not drink.
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Control of a Vehicle Braking
You
have three systems that make your vehicle go where
you want it to go. They are the brakes, the steering and
the accelerator. All three systems have to do their work
at the places where the tires meet the road.
Sometimes, as when you’re driving
on snow or ice, it’s
easy to ask more of those control systems than the tires
and road can provide. That means
you can lose control
of your vehicle. Braking action involves
perception time and
reaction time.
First, you have
to decide to push on the brake pedal.
That’s
perception time. Then you have to bring up your
foot and do
it. That’s reaction rime.
Average reaction time is about 3/4 of a second. But
that’s only an average. It might be less with one
driver and
as long as two or three seconds or more with
another. Age, physical condition, alertness, coordination
and eyesight all play
a part. So do alcohol, drugs and
frustration. But even
in 3/4 of a second, a vehicle
noving at
60 mph (1 00 kmh) travels 66 feet (20 m).
That could be a lot of distance in an emergency, so
keeping enough space between your vehicle and others
is important.
And,
of course, actual stopping distances vary greatly
with the surface
of the road (whether it‘s pavement or
gravel);
the condition of the road (wet, dry, icy); tire
tread; and the condition
of your brakes.
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Avoid needless heavy braking. Some people drive in
spurts
-- heavy acceleration followed by heavy
braking
-- rather than keeping pace with traffic. This
is
a mistake. Your brakes may not have time to cool
between hard stops. Your brakes will wear
out much
faster
if you do a lot of heavy braking. If you keep pace
with the traffic and allow realistic following distances,
you will eliminate a lot of unnecessary braking. That
means better braking and longer brake life.
If your engine ever stops while you’re driving, brake
normally but don’t pump your brakes.
If you do, the
pedal may get harder to push down.
If your engine
stops, you will still have some power brake assist. But
you will use it when you brake. Once the power assist is
used up, it may take longer
to stop and the brake pedal
will be harder to push.
Anti-Lock Brakes
Your vehicle has anti-lock brakes (ABS). ABS is an
advanced electronic braking system that
will help
prevent
a braking skid.
When you start your engine and begin to drive away,
your anti-lock brake system will check itself. You may
hear
a momentary motor or clicking noise while this test
is going on. This is normal.
If there’s
a problem with the
anti-lock brake system,
this
warning light will stay on.
See “Anti-Lock Brake
System Warning Light’‘
in
ANTI -
LOCK
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