CHEVROLET EXPRESS CARGO VAN 2004 1.G Owners Manual

Your Driving, the Road, and Your Vehicle..........4-2
Defensive Driving...........................................4-2
Drunken Driving.............................................4-2
Control of a Vehicle........................................4-5
Braking.........................................................4-6
Locking Rear Axle..........................................4-8
Stabilitrak
®System.........................................4-9
Steering......................................................4-11
Off-Road Recovery.......................................4-13
Passing.......................................................4-14
Loss of Control.............................................4-15
Driving at Night............................................4-16
Driving in Rain and on Wet Roads..................4-18City Driving..................................................4-21
Freeway Driving...........................................4-22
Before Leaving on a Long Trip.......................4-23
Highway Hypnosis........................................4-24
Hill and Mountain Roads................................4-25
Winter Driving..............................................4-27
If You Are Stuck: In Sand, Mud, Ice or Snow........4-31
Towing..........................................................4-32
Towing Your Vehicle.....................................4-32
Recreational Vehicle Towing...........................4-32
Loading Your Vehicle....................................4-33
Towing a Trailer...........................................4-38
Section 4 Driving Your Vehicle
4-1

Your Driving, the Road, and
Your Vehicle
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. SeeSafety Belts: They Are for
Everyone on page 1-10.
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 is 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 oor — makesproper 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.Drunken Driving
Death and injury associated with drinking and driving is
a national tragedy. It is 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, more than
16,000 annual motor vehicle-related deaths have been
associated with the use of alcohol, with more than
300,000 people injured.
4-2

Many adults — by some estimates, nearly half the adult
population — choose never to drink alcohol, so they
never drive after drinking. For persons under 21,
it is 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 eliminate the leading highway
safety problem is for people never to drink alcohol and
then drive. But what if people do? How much is “too
much” if someone plans to drive? It is 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
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 thesame 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 liquors like whiskey, gin or vodka.
It is 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.
4-3

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 will when
each has the same number of drinks.
The law in an increasing number of U.S. states, and
throughout Canada, sets the legal limit at 0.08 percent.
In some other countries, the limit is even lower. For
example, it is 0.05 percent in both France and Germany.
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 have 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!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 will be careful” is not the
right answer. What if there is 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 is something else about drinking and driving that
many people do not 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.
4-4

{CAUTION:
Drinking and then driving is very dangerous.
Your reexes, 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 do not drink and drive or
ride with a driver who has been drinking. Ride
home in a cab; or if you are with a group,
designate a driver who will not drink.
Control of a Vehicle
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 are driving on snow or ice, it
is easy to ask more of those control systems than
the tires and road can provide. That means you can lose
control of your vehicle.
4-5

Braking
Braking action involvesperception timeand
reaction time.
First, you have to decide to push on the brake pedal.
That isperception time.Then you have to bring up your
foot and do it. That isreaction time.
Averagereaction timeis about 3/4 of a second. But that
is 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 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 is 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.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 are driving, brake
normally but do not 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.
4-6

Anti-lock Brake System
Your vehicle has anti-lock brakes. 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 is a problem with
the anti-lock brake system,
this warning light will
stay on. SeeAnti-Lock
Brake System Warning
Light on page 3-32.
Let us say the road is wet and you are driving safely.
Suddenly, an animal jumps out in front of you. You slam
on the brakes and continue braking. Here is 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.
4-7

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. This can help you steer around the obstacle
while braking hard.
As you brake, your computer keeps receiving updates
on wheel speed and controls braking pressure
accordingly.Remember: Anti-lock does not 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 will not 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
Do not pump the brakes. Just hold the brake pedal
down rmly and let anti-lock work for you. You may feel
the brakes vibrate, or you may 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.
Locking Rear Axle
If your vehicle has this feature, your locking rear axle
can give you additional traction on snow, mud, ice, sand
or gravel. It works like a standard axle most of the
time, but when one of the rear wheels has no traction
and the other does, this feature will allow the wheel with
traction to move the vehicle.
4-8

Stabilitrak®System
If your vehicle has Stabilitrak®, it combines antilock
brake, traction and stability control systems and helps
the driver maintain directional control of the vehicle
in most driving conditions.
When you rst start your vehicle and begin to drive
away, the system performs several diagnostic checks to
insure that it is working properly. You may hear or
feel the system working. This is normal and does notmean there is a problem with your vehicle. The system
should initialize before the vehicle reaches 20 mph
(32 km/h). In some cases, it may take approximately two
miles (3.2 km) of driving before the system initializes.
The following chart describes the Stabilitrak
®not ready
light and the Stabilitrak®indicator light.
Stabilitrak®Not Ready Light Stabilitrak®Indicator Light Meaning
Off OffStabilitrak®is enabled,
but not active.
The traction control is not active.
Off FlashingStabilitrak
®is active, or the traction
control is active.
Off OnStabilitrak
®is disabled due to
system fault. When on after
restarting, the vehicle needs
to be serviced.
On OffStabilitrak
®is disabled due to
system initialization or the driver has
disabled with switch.
On FlashingStabilitrak
®is uninitialized
and not disabled.
The traction control is active.
4-9

For more information, seeStabilitrak®Not Ready Light
on page 3-33andStabilitrak®Indicator Light on
page 3-33.
Pressing and holding the
Stabilitrak
®button located
on the instrument panel
for more than ve seconds
can turn off Stabilitrak
®
and part of the traction
control system.
For your safety, the system can only be disabled when
the vehicle speed is less than 20 mph (32 km/h).
You will hear three chimes and the Stabilitrak
®not ready
light will come on.
To turn on the Stabilitrak
®system, press the Stabilitrak®
button again. Stabilitrak®will automatically turn back
on when the vehicle speed exceeds 20 mph (32 km/h).
You will hear one chime and the Stabilitrak
®not
ready light will turn off.
When the Stabilitrak
®system has been turned off you
may still hear system noises as a result of the
brake-traction control coming on.It is recommended to leave the system on for normal
driving conditions, but it may be necessary to turn
the system off if your vehicle is stuck in sand, mud, ice
or snow, and you want to “rock” your vehicle to
attempt to free it. SeeIf You Are Stuck: In Sand, Mud,
Ice or Snow on page 4-31.
Stabilitrak®System Operation
The Stabilitrak®system is normally on, except when the
system is initializing or has been disabled with the
Stabilitrak
®button. The Stabilitrak®system will
automatically activate to assist the driver in maintaining
vehicle directional control in most driving conditions.
When activated, the Stabilitrak
®system may reduce
engine power to the wheels and apply braking to
individual wheels as necessary to assist the driver with
vehicle directional control. If your vehicle is in cruise
control when the system activates, a Stabilitrak
®
indicator light on the instrument panel will ash, and the
cruise control will automatically disengage. When the
Stabilitrak
®system is no longer active, you may
re-engage the cruise control. See “Cruise Control” under
Turn Signal/Multifunction Lever on page 3-8.
The Stabilitrak
®system may also turn off automatically
if it determines that a problem exists with the system.
If the problem does not clear itself after restarting
the vehicle, you should see your dealer for service.
4-10