OLDSMOBILE AURORA 1995 Owners Manual

Using Your Radio Properly
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:
1. Adjust the volume control to the lowest setting.
2. 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 of your vehicle’s
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I NOTICE: (Continued)
engine, Delco@ radio or other systems, and even
damage them. And, 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 retailer and be sure to check federal rules
covering mobile radio and telephone units.
Care of Your Cassette Tape Player
A tape player that is not cleaned regularly is subject to
reduced sound quality, ruined cassettes, or a damaged
mechanism. Cassette tapes that are not properly stored
in their plastic cases away from contaminants, direct
sunlight, and extreme heat may not operate properly and
could cause premature failure of the tape player.
Cassettes are subject to wear and the sound quality may
degrade over time. Always verify that the cassette tape is
in
good condition before obtaining service on your tape player.
Your tape player should be cleaned with every
50 hours of
use to provide optimum perfornxmce. Your radio may
display “Cln” to remind you that you have used your tape
player for
50 hours without re-setting the tape clean timer.
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If you notice a reduction in sound quality, regardless of
when the tape player was last cleaned, try playing a
different cassette tape to see if the tape or the tape player is
at fault.
If the second cassette results in no improvement in
sound quality, try cleaning the tape player.
Proper tape player cleaning should be done
with a
scrubbing action, non-abrasive cleaning cassette. This is
a wet-type cleaning system that uses a cleaning cassette
with pads which scrub the tape head as the hubs of the
cleaner cassette turn. If you use this type of cleaner, the
radio
may display an error and eject the cartridge. This
is normal and
is the result of an added feature in the tape
player that detects broken tapes.
If an error occurs, you
will need
to insert the cleaning cassette at least three
times to ensure thorough cleaning.
You may prefer to
use 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
cause an error, but may not clean as thoroughly as the
scrubbing-type cleaner. Whichever cleaning method
YOLI choose, follow the
instructions included with the cleaning cassette to
properly clean the tape player. Cleaning cassettes are
available
in most stores that sell audio products. A
scrubbing action cleaning cassette is available through
your retailer (SPO#
12344600).
Cassette tape adapter kits for portable CD players will
not work in your cassette player. These adapters will
cause the radio to display an error and the adapter
cassette
will eject.
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.
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Power Antenna Mast Care
Your power antenna will
look its best and work well
if it’s cleaned from time to
time.
To Clean the Antenna Mast
1.
2.
3.
4.
Turn on the ignition and radio to raise the antenna to
full mast extension.
Dampen a clean cloth with mineral spirits or
equivalent solvent.
Wipe a cloth over the mast sections, removing any
dirt.
Wipe the antenna dry with a clean cloth before
retracting.
5. Make the antenna go up and down by turning the
radio or ignition on and off.
6. Then repeat steps 2 through 4 if necessary.
NOTICE:
Don’t lubricate the power antenna. Lubrication
could damage it.
I NOTICE:
,- Before entering an automatic car wash, turn off
, , your radio to make the power antenna go down.
This will prevent the mast from possibly getting
damaged.
If the antenna does not go down when
you turn the radio
off, it may be damaged or need
to be cleaned. In either case, lower the antenna by
hand by carefully pressing the antenna down.
If the mast portion of your antenna is damaged, you can
easily replace it. See your retailer
for a replacement kit
and follow the instructions in the kit.
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NOTES
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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 LIS~~LI~ 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
A~lr01-a: 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
cotnmon. 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
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, 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 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:
How much alcohol consumed
0 The drinker’s body weight
The amount of food that is consumed before and
during drinking
The length of time it’s taken the drinker to consume
the alcohol
According to the American Medical Association,
a
I 80-pound (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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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 U.S. 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 twelve times greater; at a
level of
0. I5 percent, the chance is twenty-five 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. “1’11 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 in-juries
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.
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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're driving
on snow or ice, it's
easy to ask n~ore
of those control systems than the tires
and road can provide. That means
~OLI can lose control
of your vehicle.
Braking
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
rem-tion time.
Average remtio/1 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
moving at 60
lnph ( 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
tread; and the condition
of your brakes.
e (mvel); the condition of the road (wet, dry, icy): tire
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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 fdster 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 Aurora has an advanced electronic braking system
that
will help prevent a braking skid.
ANT’- (I)
LOCK
This light on the
instrument panel
will
come on briefly when
you start your vehicle.
When you start your vehicle and begin to drive away,
you may hear a momentary motor or clicking noise. And
you may even notice that your brake pedal moves
a little
while this is going on. This is the ABS system testing
itself.
If there’s a problem with the anti-lock brake
system, the anti-lock brake system warning light will
stay
on.
See “Anti-Lock Brake System Warning Light“ in the
Index.
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