1996 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme Owner's Manuals

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. It
is normal for the cassette to eject while cleaning. Insert
the cassette at least three times to ensure thorough
cleaning.
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. 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.

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.
5.
6.
Turn on the ignition and radio to raise the antenna.
Dampen a clean cloth with mineral spirits or an
equivalent solvent.
Wipe the cloth over the mast sections, removing any dirt.
Wipe
dry with a clean cloth.
Make the antenna
go up and down by turning the
radio or ignition
off and on.
Repeat
if necessary.
I NOTICE:
~ ~~
Don’t lubricate the power antenna. Lubrication
could damage it.
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.
I
3-28

NOTES
~ 3-29

3-30
: . . e-

I 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 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.
4-1

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:
0 Judgment
0 Muscular Coordination
0 Vision
Attentiveness.
Police records show that almost half of all
m .otor
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:
The amount of alcohol consumed
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 AmericamMedical 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.
consume the alcohol.
4-2

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 relatiwe 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. Resekh 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’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 ,ihat
many people don’t know. Medical research shows that
alcohol in a person’$ 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.
I
~ a CA-TIO, I:
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.