CHEVROLET MALIBU 1998 Owners Manual

Downloaded from www.Manualslib.com manuals search engine 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 fender.

Downloaded from www.Manualslib.com manuals search engine 0 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.
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4-3
4-6
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4-9
4-11
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4- 14
4- 16 Defensive
Driving
Drunken Driving
Control of a Vehicle
Braking Steering
Off-Road Recovery
Passing
Loss of Control
Driving at Night
Driving in Rain and on Wet Roads 4-
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4-20
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4-22 4-22
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4-28
4-30
4-32 City Driving
Freeway Driving
Before Leaving on a Long
Trip
Highway Hypnosis
Hill and Mountain Roads
Winter Driving
Recreational Vehicle Towing Loading Your Vehicle
Towing a Trailer

Downloaded from www.Manualslib.com manuals search engine .. i
Defensive Driving
The best advice anyone can give about driving is:
Drive defensively.
Please start with a very important safety device in your
Chevroiet: 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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Downloaded from www.Manualslib.com manuals search engine 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:
0 Judgment
Muscular Coordination
0 Vision
0 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
dnnk 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:
0 The amount of alcohol consumed
The drinker’s body weight
0 ‘i’he amount of food that is consumed before and
during drinking
consume the alcohol.
The length of time it has taken the drinker to
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- 1/2 ounces
(45 ml) of a liquor like whiskey, gin or vodka.
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Downloaded from www.Manualslib.com manuals search engine 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 dnnks, 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!

Downloaded from www.Manualslib.com manuals search engine 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 CAI-’ION:
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.

Downloaded from www.Manualslib.com manuals search engine Control of a Vehicle %raking
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 time.
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 314
of a second, a vehicle
moving at
60 mph (100 km/h) 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; the condition of your brakes; the weight of the
vehicle and the amount of brake force applied.

Downloaded from www.Manualslib.com manuals search engine 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 (ABS)
Your vehicle has anti-lock brakes (ABS). ABS is an
advanced electronic braking system that will help
prevent
a braking skid.
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
the Index.

Downloaded from www.Manualslib.com manuals search engine You slam on the brakes. Here’s what happens with ABS.
A computer senses that wheels are slowing down. If one
of the wheels is about to stop rolling, the computer will
separately work the brakes at each front wheel and at
both rear wheels.
The anti-lock system can change the brake pressure faster
than
any driver could. The computer is programmed to
make the
most of available tire and road conditions.
Here’s how anti-lock works. Let’s say the road is wet.
You’re driving safely. Suddenly
an animal jumps out in
front
of you.
You can steer around the obstacle while braking hard.
As you brake, your computer keeps receiving updates on
wheel speed and controls braking pressure accordingly.
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Downloaded from www.Manualslib.com manuals search engine Remember: Anti-lock doesn’t change the time you need
to get your foot up to the brake pedal or always decrease
stopping distance.
If you get too close to the vehicle in
front of you, you won’t have time to apply your brakes
if that vehicle suddenly slows or stops. Always leave
enough room up ahead to stop, even though you have
anti-lock brakes.
Using Anti-Lock
Don’t pump the brakes. Just hold the brake pedal down
firmly and let anti-lock work for you. You may feel a
slight brake pedal pulsation or notice some noise, but
this is normal.
Braking in Emergencies
With anti-lock, you can steer and brake at the same
time. In many emergencies, steering can help you more
than even the very best braking.
Steering
Power Steering
If you lose power steering assist because the engine
stops or the system is not functioning, you can steer but
it will take much more effort.
Steering Tips
Driving on Curves
It’s important to take curves at a reasonable speed.
A lot of the “driver lost control” accidents mentioned on
the news happen
on curves. Here’s why:
Experienced driver or beginner, each of
us is subject to
the same laws of physics when driving on curves. The
traction of the tires against the road surface makes it
possible for the vehicle to change its path when you turn
the front wheels. If there’s no traction, inertia will keep
the vehicle going in the same direction. If you’ve ever
tried to steer a vehicle on wet ice, you’ll understand this\
.
The traction you can get in a curve depends on the
condition of your tires and the road surface, the angle at
which the curve is banked, and your speed.
While you’re
in
a curve, speed is the one factor you can control.
Suppose you’re steering through a sharp curve. Then you
suddenly accelerate. Both control systems
-- steering and
acceleration
-- have to do their work where the tires meet
the road. Adding the sudden acceleration can demand too
much of those places.
You can lose control.
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