1998 GMC SIERRA Owners Manual

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 this message appears on
the display, your cassette tape player needs to be
cleaned. It will still play tapes, but you should clean
it as
soon as possible to prevent damage to your tapes and
player.
If you notice a reduction in sound quality, try a
known good cassette to see
if it is the tape or the tape
player at fault.
If this other cassette has no improvement
in sound quality, clean the tape player.
The recommended cleaning method for your cassette
tape player is the use
of a scrubbing action,
non-abrasive cleaning cassette with pads which scrub
the tape head
as the hubs of the cleaner cassette turn.
The recommended cleaning cassette is available through
your dealership
(GM Part No. 12344789).
When using a scrubbing action, non-abrasive cleaning
cassette,
it is normal for the cassette to eject while
cleaning because your
unit is equipped with a cut tape
detection feature and some cleaning cassettes may
appear as
a broken tape. To prevent the cleaning cassette
from being e-jected, use
the following steps:
If your vehicle is equipped with the AM-FM Stereo with
Cassette Tape Player:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Turn the ignition to RUN or ACCESSORY.
Turn the radio on.
Insert the scrubbing action cleaning cassette.
Within five seconds, press and hold the
REV and
FWD buttons at the same time for three seconds. The
tape symbol on the display will flash, showing that
the cut tape detections feature is no longer active.
Eject the cleaning cassette after the manufacturer's
recommended cleaning time.
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If your vehicle is equipped with the AM-FM Stereo with
Cassette Tape Player and Automatic Tone Control:
1. Turn the ignition to RUN or ACCESSORY.
2. Turn the radio off.
3. Press and hold the TAPE AUX button for
five seconds. The tape symbol
on the display will
flash for two seconds.
4. Insert the scrubbing action cleaning cassette.
5. Eject the cleaning cassette after the manufacturer's
recommended cleaning time.
When the cleaning cassette has been ejected, the cut tape
detection feature is active again.
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
on its own. A non-scrubbing action cleaner may
not clean as thoroughly as the scrubbing type cleaner.
The use of
a non-scrubbing action, dry-type cleaning
cassette is not recommended
After you clean the player, press and hold EJECT for
five seconds to reset the CLN indicator. The radio
will
display --- to show the indicator was reset.
Cassettes are subject to wear and the sound quality
may
degrade over time. Always Incake sure the cassette tape is in
good condition before you have yo~~r 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.
Care of Your Compact Disc Player
The use of CD lens cleaner discs is not advised, due to
the risk of contaminating the lens of the CD optics with
lubricants internal to the CD mechanism.
Fixed Mast Antenna
The fixed mast antenna can withstand most car 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 Yoiir 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.
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4-5
4-6
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Defensive Driving Drunken Driving
Control of a Vehicle
Braking
Steering
Off-Road Recovery Passing
Loss of Control
Off-Road Driving with Your
Four-Wheel-Drive Vehicle
Driving at Night
Driving
in Rain and on Wet Roads 4-3
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4-48 City Driving
Freeway Driving
Before Leaving
on a Long Trip
Highway Hypnosis
Hill and Mountain Roads
Winter Driving Recreational Vehicle Towing
Loading Your Vehicle
Camper Wiring Harness
(If Equipped)
Pickup Conversion
to Chassis Cab
Towing a Trailer
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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.
Defensive driving requires that a driver concentrate on the
driving task. Anything that distracts from the driving
task
-- such as concentrating on a cellular telephone call,
reading, or reaching for something on the
floor -- makes
proper defensive driving more difficult and can even cause
a collision, with resulting injury. Ask a passenger to help
do things like this, or pull
off the road in a safe place to do
them yourself. These simple defensive driving techniques
could save your life.
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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, over
17,000 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 U.S. 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
The drinker’s body weight
The amount of food that is consumed before and
The length of time it has taken the drinker to
during drinking
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
( 120 ml) glasses
of wine or three mixed drinks if each had 1 - 112 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. I0 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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