length CHEVROLET TRACKER 1994 Owners Manual

Your Driving and the Road
Defensive Driving
The best advice anyone can give about
driving is: Drive defensively.
Please start with a very important safety
device
in your Geo: 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.
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 takes away three
things that anyone needs to drive a
vehicle:
0 Judgment
0 Muscular Coordination
Vision
Police records show that almost half of
all motor vehicle-related deaths involve
alcohol
- a driver, a passenger or
someone else, such as a pedestrian, had
been drinking.
In most cases, these
deaths are the result of someone who
was drinking and driving. About
20,000
motor vehicle-related deaths occur’each
year because of alcohol, and thousands
of people are injured.
Just how much alcohol is too much ifa
person plans to drive‘? Ideally, no one
should drink alcohol and then drive.
But
if one does, then what’s “too much”‘? It
:an be 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 Content (BAC j of
someone who is drinking depends upon
four things:
How much alcohol is
in the drink.
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.
. . ,100
ProCarManuals.com

0 Are there hidden surface obstacles?
Ruts? Logs? Boulders?
0 What’s at the bottom of the hill? Is
there a hidden creek bank or even a
river bottom with large rocks?
If you decide you can go down a
hill
safely, then try to keep your vehicle
headed straight down, and use a low gear.
This way, engine drag can help your
brakes and they won’t have to do all the
work. Descend slowly, keeping your
vehicle under control at all times.
Q: Are there some things I should not
do when driving down
a hill?
A: Yes! These are important because if
you ignore them you could lose
control and have a serious accident.
When driving downhill, avoid turns
that take you across the incline
of the
hill.
A hill that’s not too steep to drive
down may be too steep to drive
across. You could roll over if you
don’t drive straight down.
Never go downhill with the
transmission in “N” (Neutral), or with
the clutch pedal depressed in a manual
shift. This is called “free-wheeling.”
Your brakes will have to do all the
work and could overheat and fade.
Avoid braking
so hard that you lock
the front wheels when going downhill.
If your front wheels are locked, you
can’t steer your vehicle. If your
wheels lock up during downhill
braking, you may feel the vehicle
starting to slide sideways.
To regain
your direction, just ease
off the brakes
and steer to keep the front of the
vehicle pointing straight downhill.
Q: Am I likely to stall when going
downhill?
A:
0
0
0
0
It‘s much more likely to happen going
uphill.
But if it happens going
downhill, here’s what to do.
Stop your vehicle by applying the
regular brakes. Apply the parking
brake.
Shift to
“P” (Park) (or to Neutral with
the manual transmission) and, while
still braking, restart the engine.
Shift back to a low gear, release the
parking brake, and drive straight down.
If the engine won’t start, get out and
get help.
Driving Across an Incline
Sooner or later, an off-road trail will
probably go across the incline
of a hill. If
this happeris, you have to decide whether
to try to drive across the incline. Here are
some things to consider:
0 A hill that can be driven straight up
or down may be too steep to drive
across. When you go straight up or
down a hill, the length
of the wheel
base (the distance from the front
wheels to the rear wheels) reduces the
113 :. .
ProCarManuals.com

Service and Appearance Care
...
Wheel Nuts
Wheel Nut Torque ..................... . . 60 lb. ft. (80 N*m)
Vehicle Dimensions
Wheelbase ............................................ 86.6” (2 200 mm)
Tread Front
................................................ 54.9” (1 395 mm)
Rear
............................................... 55.1”(1400mm)
Length
.............................................. 142.5”(3620mm)
Height
................................................65.0” (1651mm)
Width ................................................ 64.2” (1 630 mm)
.. .202
ProCarManuals.com