R.T.F.M.!!!!!

[MiniDave]

A female cousin was lamenting the cost of buying a warranty for her car, but felt she had no choice as she knows nothing about her car and feels she's vulnerable to getting ripped off.

I suggested all the usual things, maybe taking a local community college course about general car maintenance and ownership and so on....this is not an inexperienced 18 year old but rather a smart, educated adult woman.....but the one thing she'd never done was read the owner's manual!

This is a pet peeve of mine - I see it everyday in my car forums and Facebook - someone asking what does this light on my dash mean? Why is there a noise when I push on the brakes? Why won't my car start? How do I.......

I mean, come on folks, 99% of what you need to know is right there in the glove box - but it's too easy to grab your phone and get 10,000 opinions - most incorrect - off of FaceTube.

Of course, in lieu of actually learning anything about your car you could just take a knowledgeable friend with you to the shop......

Cheeze louise.

I know most of the folks on here probably read every manual for every machine they have cover to cover - it's the nature of us I guess, but is the general public just lazy? Or is this the new way? Just blunder about and ask every unknown idiot on the internet to tell you what you can easily find out for yourself?

[BruceK]

Haha. You'll never guess what I was doing till I picked up my phone to see what was going on here!   We recently bought a new Mazda CX-5 GTR and I was reading the manual (for about the 4th time).   This car has all sorts of electronic safety features (lane keeping assist, stop and go radar cruise, emergency brake assist, etc) so there are plenty of new things for me to learn about.  Plus it has all sorts of "infotainment" things too like Apple CarPlay.   Of course it has the regular do's and don'ts and maintenance guide as well.

The big let down – and I think this applies to any manufacturers manual – is that there are whole sections on features or characteristics with a little caveat or asterisk that says *some models so you've got to determine if it applies to your particular car or not.  That can be very confusing to a lot of people, myself included.  It would be really helpful if they would produce special Manuals that apply just to the particular car with the options you purchased. I realize that would not be practical to produce a number of different owners manuals but it shouldn't be too hard to generate a PDF that could be printed out by the owners or viewed on screen that only listed features applicable to the car you bought.  Fortunately we bought one of the top trim levels so almost everything in the manual is on our car. 

[MiniDave]

Rose spent the first 4 days after she got her Allroad reading the manual - and ran into the same thing - does my car have this? How do I tell? I'm grateful that she does tho.....saves a lot of time. She sets her key up to move the seat, mirrors and HVAC to her settings, then when I've messed it all up by driving her car all she has to do it hit her button and everything is rainbows and unicorns again!  77.gif

[Red Riley]

Funny. I feel the same way about people asking how to use the internet. I mean, you're on the internet, right? Use the keyboard and type in what you're looking for. Jeezus, it's not rocket surgery.
Or especially the ones who are on the (other) Mini forum, the one that's attached to a place where you can buy parts, asking if anyone knows where to find parts. I mean, FFS. Use your brain for something besides a hat rack. 

[BruceK]

To Dave's original point, how is someone going to know what this button does without reading the manual?



(It adjusts the sensitivity distance for following a car before various electronic safety systems begin to intervene)

[MPlayle]

I have found on many of the newer cars, the manual does not really provide decent information for self-servicing.  The manufacturer wants you to go back to the dealer for service.

The 2016 MINI Clubman I had was that way.  It had several manuals, but the covered the "bells & whistles" but not how to do basic service things.  Plus, they were not always accurate as the feature(s) had been updated since the manual had been written.

It is also much harder to get up-to-date service manuals such as a Haynes manual for my 2016 Jeep Wrangler - the last published paper manual stopped at 2011 and covers mostly the prior generation.  The owners manual does not cover things like how to reset the oil change interval counter.  If you don't reset it when you do an oil change, you end up with an indicator and message always displayed.

At least I do know how to search online for most of what I need to find out.

[BruceK]

And it took several readings of the manual (this feature is not explained well) and some trial and error before I understood what Auto Hold does.  It might be a Mazda-only feature. (Edit: I was mistaken, lots of brands including Ford, VW, KIA and others offer this feature.)

Basically Auto Hold prevents the "creep" forward you get with an automatic transmission when stopped and you release the brake pedal but don't push the accelerator pedal.  Personally, I don't like automatic transmissions and the creep "feature"  requiring constant application of the brakes when stopped - such as at a red light or going through a drive-thru really bugs me.   Auto Hold locks the brakes after a full, dead stop, illuminates the brake lights, until the accelerator pedal is pushed, then it releases the brakes.  So you can take your foot off the brake pedal completely. I like using it because it's similar to the way I drive a manual, say while going through a drive-thru; I put the gearshift in neutral and I pull up the handbrake. 

The only gripe I have is that Auto Hold must be initiated each time the car is started.   

[94touring]

Someone say something about reading manuals?

[Red Riley]

To Dave's original point, how is someone going to know what this button does without reading the manual?



(It adjusts the sensitivity distance for following a car before various electronic safety systems begin to intervene)

Duh, that's obviously the tractor beam.

[BruceK]

Someone say something about reading manuals?

Boom!  And Dan drops the mic. 

[John Gervais]

I've tried to read Hyacinth's Toyota (2018 Yaris Hybrid) manual several times and it's confusing as hell.  Aside for the fact that it's in Danish, which I read  62.gif, practically everything in the index is listed under 'Betjening af ... " / "Operation of ... ".  So, if you want to set the windscreen wipers to auto-detect moisture on the windshield, it's not listed under 'V' for Vinduesvisker , but under 'B'.  Center 'instrument pod' and associated buttons around the dash are also very confusing, as they're quite jumbled in the manual.  Thank goodness there's a sticker in the glovebox which has the tire pressure specs..

I've almost learned much of what's there, but it's not been easy.

T'would have been much nicer had the manual been divided into chapters according to trim level.

[gr8kornholio]

Luckily the Acura salesman spent a good hour plus helping show Krystle how to set up and use all the features of her new car.  Now as little as she's driven it thanks to COVID she may have no idea how to use it when life gets back to normal.  Then I'll have to read the manual and show her again.