The other night I started up the Bonny (9:15pm), and glanced at the clock/radio display like I always do. Much to my surprise, it was a series of weird characters... as I looked closer, I saw it did say 9:15 but several of the digital "lines" were missing. A few minutes later, they all popped back on. Is the display going bad?

Mine would do that occasionally too. I fixed it by putting in an aftermarket CD player.

Not the answer you wanted, I'm guessing... At least you know you're not alone.

Personal Guess: Power spike or surge when staring the vehicle

Bad connection to LCD inside the radio. Yeah you can pop them open to fix...

Agreed. Bad connection. Sometimes all it involves is pushing on the LCD lightly. See if that helps next time.

Note: It might be tough to apply pressure to the LCD with that protective covering, so just tweek it with your finger, but not too hard

Thanks all... kinda what I figured. I plan on replacing the OEM unit (which is cassette... hard to believe they still used that in 1998!) with a CD unit soon, so I'm not too worried about the problem lasting a long time.

I like the units that play _both_ CDs and cassettes. I've got plenty of stuff in both media, and it'* a pain to have to select a vehicle for a trip around town based solely on what I want to listen to along the way.

Yeah i wanted one of those but couldn't find one.

Fortunately, when I started buying music, CD'* were available

Ditto. I like the idea of a dual media player too, although a cassette/CD combo wouldn't serve me too well... I'm thinking more of CD/mp3 which I know is common on many aftermarket head units. Anyone know if GM or any other manufacturer offers mp3 capabilities from the factory yet?

I _think_ so... Seem to recall reading that as one of the blurbs in the latest Chevy ads.

Remember AM Stereo? That was supposed to be another Way Cool Thing, for about 45 minutes back in the early 1990s...

As for the dual-media players (CD/cassette), I drove a couple of rental Olds Auroras that had them, so maybe there'* a Pontiac version (i.e. red backlighting) out there somewhere.