PONTIAC GRAND-AM 1995 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.
AM
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 also
pick up noise from things like storms and power lines.
To lower this noise,
try reducing the treble level.
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:
Adjust the volume control to the lowest setting.
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 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 dealer 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, mined cassette, 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 cause failure of the tape player.
Your tape player should be cleaned every 50 hours of
use. 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. This system uses a
cleaning cassette with pads which scrub the tape head as
the hubs of the cleaner cassette turn. It
is normal for the
cartridge to eject while cleaning. Insert the cassette at
least three times to ensure
a thorough cleaning. A
scrubbing action cleaning cassette is available through
your Pontiac dealership.
You may 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 eject. 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.
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.
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NOTES
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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.
Defensive Driving
The best advice anyone can give about driving is: Drive
defensively.
Please start with a very important safety device in your
Pontiac: 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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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
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 21, 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:
0 How much alcohol consumed
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
According to the American Medical Association, a
180-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.
consume the alcohol
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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 0.15 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. “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.
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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 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
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’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 btops. 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 elimiaate a lot
of unnecessary braking. That
means better biaking 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 t&e longer to stop and the brake pedal
will
be harder to push.
Anti-Lock Brakes (ABS)
Your Pontiac has an advanced electronic braking system
that will help prevent a braking skid.
1
This light on the
instrument panel will come on briefly when
you start your vehicle.
When you start your vehicle, or when you 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 or flash.
See “Anti-Lock Brake System Warning Light” in the
Index.
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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 slam on the brakes. Here’s what happens with ABS.
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.
You can steer around the obstacle while braking hard.
A computer senses that wheels are slowing down. If one you brake, your computer keeps receiving updates on
separately work the brakes at each front wheel and at the
rear wheels. Remember: Anti-lock doesn’t change the time
you need
Of the is about to stop the computer wheel speed and controls braking pressure accordingly.
to get your foot up to the brake pedal. If you get too
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