OLDSMOBILE SILHOUETTE 1996 Owners Manual

Understanding Radio Reception
FM Stereo
FM stereo will give you the best sound. But FM signals
will reach only about
10 to 40 miles (16 to 65 km). Tall
buildings or hills can interfere with
FM signals, causing
the sound
to come and go.
AWI
The range for most AM stations is greater than for FM,
especially at night. The longer range, however, can
cause stations to interfere with each other. AM can pick
up noise from things like storms and power lines. Try
reducing the treble to reduce this noise if you ever get it.
Tips About Your Audio System
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:
0 Adjust the volume control to the lowest setting.
0 Increase volume slowly until you hear comfortably
and clearly.
I 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 engine, Delco radio or other
systems, and even damage them. 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.
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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 you notice a reduction
in sound quality, try
a known good cassette to see if
the tape or the tape player is at fault.
If this other
cassette has no improvement in sound quality,
clean
the tape player.
Cleaning may
be done with a scrubbing action,
non-abrasive cleaning cassette with pads which scrub
the tape head
as the hubs of the cleaner cassette turn.
A scrubbing action cleaning cassette is available through
your Oldsmobile retailer.
You may also choose a non-scrubbing action, wet-type
cleaner which uses
a cassette with a fabric belt to clean
the tape head. It may not clean
as thoroughly as the
scrubbing type cleaner.
Cassettes are subject to wear and the sound quality may
degrade over time. Always make sure that the cassette
tape is in good condition before you have your 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.
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Integrated Roof Antenna
‘Your state-of-the-art integrated roof antenna is not
visible. It is located between the roof and headliner
of
your vehicle, covering the entire roof area from the rear
edge
of the front doors to the liftgate.
NOTICE:
Don’t mount anything to your roof or headliner,
such as an antenna or a luggage carrier.
If you
puncture the roof or headliner, you could damage or destroy your integrated roof antenna. Have
any work
of this type done by your retailer.
If you want to add a mobile phone or two-way radio to
your vehicle, there are special precautions you’ll need to
take because of your integrated roof antenna. See
“Adding Sound Equipment” in the Index.
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NOTES
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I
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.
Defensive Driving
The best advice anyone can give about driving is:
Drive defensively.
Please start with
a very important safety device in
your Oldsmobile: 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.
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-runken 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: 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:
Judgment 0 The amount of alcohol consumed
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, 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.
0 The drinker’s body weight
0 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 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 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 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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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.
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.
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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 more of those control systems than the tires
and road can provide. That means you can lose control
of your vehicle.
Braking
Braking action involves perception time and reuction 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
3/4 of a second, a vehicle
moving at
60 mph ( 100 km/h) trave.ls 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; and the condition
of your brakes.
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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 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
Your vehicle has anti-lock brakes (ABS). ABS is an
advanced electronic braking system that will
help
prevent a braking skid.
When you start your engine, or when you 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, and you may even notice that your
brake pedal moves a little. (You may also hear a clicking
noise
if you leave the ignition in the RUN position for
about four seconds before starting the vehicle.) This
is normal.
If there’s a problem with the
anti-lock brake system, this
warning light will stay on or
flash. See “Anti-Lock
Brake System Warning
Light”
in the Index.
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