The manual for your motor I mean.....
The CRV which I have had for three months now came with a 'how it works 'manual which is 498 pages long and it is only in English.
The ' Navigation System' manual is 220 pages again only in English.
Is it any wonder that we don't RTFM when they are that size.
I found the rear camera lines explanation on page 185 of the Navigation System manual.
So how big is yours , English language only.
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Honda jazz Mk3, 596 pages including one giving dire warnings about looking closely at the laser rangefinder for the city auto braking system!
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Surely no one sits down and reads a manual front to back. It's only the things you don't understand that you need to look up and read and when you do you want a clear explanation.
The total length of the manual is really rather irrelevant.
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I have what I accept is a peculiar habit with manuals for things I like; cars, gadgets, etc.
Once I get to know the car *then* I tend to read the manual from start to finish.
It makes more sense to me to find out all the non-obvious stuff after I've investigated all the obvious stuff.
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>> I have what I accept is a peculiar habit with manuals for things I like;
>> cars, gadgets, etc.
>>
>> Once I get to know the car *then* I tend to read the manual from
>> start to finish.
>>
>> It makes more sense to me to find out all the non-obvious stuff after I've
>> investigated all the obvious stuff.
>>
Much the same here, there's usually some subtle stuff I've missed. The manual for my Avensis is a mere 400 pages ish, of very American English. You'd think they flog enough cars here to have a proper English manual.
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>> Surely no one sits down and reads a manual front to back. It's only the
>> things you don't understand that you need to look up and read and when you
>> do you want a clear explanation.
>>
>> The total length of the manual is really rather irrelevant.
>>
When it is your first car with intelligent speed limiter which can match the cars speed to the speed limit signs it reads I certainly want to know where the "off" switch is. Also first time use of auto idle stop, adjustable speed limiter, forward collision warning, lane departure warning, traffic sign recognition, agile handling system, auto headlight main and dip, tyre deflation system, and the city brake active system. The other systems I have used before. Then of course there is the tablet computer in the middle of the dashboard which is linked to some car systems, and other systems which are controlled by the 19 buttons on the steering wheel.
If you don't mind I will read the manual a few times so when the dashboard lights up like a disco I know why and where the off switch is.
Last edited by: Old Sundodger on Mon 22 Aug 16 at 18:54
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I think you miss my point. Yes you need to read up on the stuff you don't know about but you'd don't need to read the the whole wordy tome do you? You known how to change tyre or fill up the washer bottle don't you?
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>> I think you miss my point.
>>
No, it just that this car has a lot of features I have not used before, I can skip the chapter on how to drive it and the one on how to maintain it. That leaves eight on how to use, and set up your preferences for the rest of the car. I have found you have to understand the features as some can be very intrusive. Collision avoidance and auto braking for example. It also has two manually set speed limiters and an auto limiter linked to speed limit signs. I do not want to inadvertantly activate them and then have to figure out how to disable them while driving. Even simple stuff like when the A and B trip recorders individual reset has to be set up. On a button press, on engine start, or on refuel. Done through a menu accessed through some of the steering wheel buttons, simple when you know how!
If you did not read the manual you would never know that half the features were programmable.
Last edited by: Old Sundodger on Mon 22 Aug 16 at 20:36
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Did exactly that not reading the manual thing when I first got one of my cars with a speed limiter I didn't even know it had. Thought the car had gone into limp home mode as it suddenly dropped speed and then wouldn't go above 30 and I was ready to call the dealer.
Then realised what had happened through some arcane icon on the dash but had no clue how to disable it on the move. I'd touched some button or combination thereof inadvertently. If it had been on the motorway it could have been unpleasant.
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7 3/4 inches. Base to tip. Metric always sounds more impressive, but with these figures I don't need to boast.
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My little mid range car is bigger than that, you must have problems with room to wave your leg s.
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BMW manuals in the 1980's were beautifully written and illustrated and explained the theory of operation of the vehicle's systems, excercises to do on a long journey etc...
They were a joy to read compared to everything I have read since which are nannying, repeat the same disclaimers on every page, badly translated and boring.
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...now the BMW ones are "online" in the car, and you can call them up via the iDrive and read them as you are driving along (letting all the safety features such as collision avoidance, active cruise control, lane discipline, etc. that you're trying to read up about and understand take care of the car in the meantime).
;-)
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Mine is a cheapo car, it almost drives itself but I have the book on my knee. :-)
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>> The manual for your motor I mean.....
>>
>> The CRV which I have had for three months now came with a 'how it
>> works 'manual which is 498 pages long and it is only in English.
I'm pretty sure it was the manual for my last CRV that had 34 pages on "Seatbelts".
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It's OK for you folk who have been posing around in flash company funded cars that you would not dream of paying for yourselves. These electronic features are now moving down the food chain to those who pay for their cars, (even though most are on the never never). Even us impoverished pensioners can afford to pay cash for decent cars these days. That is why we need to RTFM.
Last edited by: Old Sundodger on Tue 23 Aug 16 at 08:07
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To date I have only spent two minutes looking in the manual for my 2011 Focus. I wanted to see how the radio worked and try to use the sat nav ( never had a car with sat nav).
Unfortunately, because it is a run out 2nd generation model, the radio machine, as fitted, is not one of the 6 models shown in the handbook. And the sat nav doesn't work, but I was told that on purchase. A new SD card is £250+ vat according to my local Ford garage
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Hang on a minute....
Have just found the section on the Honda anti mid lane mimser missile system .....
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...maybe if Fursty had read his, he would have found the "oil slick" button.
(cf A66)
;-)
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I have owned a few old wrecks with that system, I can't find it on this motor. :-)
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I'm afraid I always read the manual for a car. Obviously not every word, but I do look at every page. Not before first driving it, but not too long after.
I even read the manuals for hire cars if I have a moment. It's not like the old days, when all cars were much of a muchness. Each manufacturer now has their own irritating things.
Won't forget being given the keys to a hire Insignia outside Victoria station. Bloke brought it round, plonked it on the double-yellow line and disappeared. Could I get the hand brake off? Went into the office and the girls had no idea, but another customer had hired the same car the previous week and was able to help.
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>>I always read the manual for a car
ditto .. cover2cover - - scobbydoo for ester 2cm thin.
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327 pages for the Astra.
and 209 pages for the stereo. But that covers all the models of stereo fitted, not just for the one I have.
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I must admit I don't really know how many pages in mine. Took it of of the glovebox last night and its still wrapped in the original cellophane. Seems a shame to open it.
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CG, do you realise you can keep it in the wrapper but get it online and download it? No excuse now!
I've just read the XC60 manual online this morning because I've had a couple of days driving the car over the France and Belgium and there were a few things I couldn't work out!
Being stubborn I wasn't going to ask....
Why doesn't the tailgate open when I press the key pad?
Why did the start/stop not work driving around the Eurotunnel terminal?
...I know why the fuel consumption is 5mpg down on Ian's driving!
It's 422 pages btw.
Pat
Last edited by: Pat on Tue 23 Aug 16 at 10:49
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I've tried reading manuals before Pat but I find them lacking much in the way of a lot in plot and they are all much the same. I take the view that if its not obvious how something works I'll do without it.
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Did the manual tell you why everyone else was driving on the wrong side of the road Pat ?
:0)
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One of the great pleasures I get with a new car is reading the entire manual, twice. I read it immediately I get the car, cover to cover. There are often little wrinkles you discover that way. I recall, for example, making some comment on the Volvo forum about the pocket that's hidden at the front of the driver/passenger seats, and a Whole Bunch of People didn't even know they were there. Ok, no big deal, but if a car offers me something I like to at least have the opportunity to use it if I want to.
Then, after six months or so, I read it again, usually looking at the more obscure features of the satnav or something, because that's when I'm going on holiday and I've entirely forgotten how to do way points, or itineraries, or that the cruise control resume has different speeds depending on whether the steering wheel is straight ahead or not, and that's why it seems odd on occasion (all real examples), and so on.
But hey, I like small print. I'll read every word on a contract, iTunes terms and conditions, the backs of products, for entertainment. Always interesting comparing the exact ingredient list between a brand name handwash and a poundshop variant, for example. I can't help it.
Last edited by: Crankcase on Tue 23 Aug 16 at 11:22
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>> I take the
>> view that if its not obvious how something works I'll do without it.
That works most of the time, not always. Back in 1998 after about a year of driving it occasionally the boss demanded to know why, when she borrowed my car, it would keep adjusting the seat and the mirrors after she had set them. Every time she stopped and went into a shop or whatever, when she came back and unlocked the car she had to watch it move the seat back and down, adjust the rake, then angle the mirrors back out. She would then press the '2' memory button, which she had programmed for her own preferences, to put them all back again.
After some investigation, we allocated ourselves a set of keys each, and coded what had been the spare transponder to the '2' memory selection.
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I seem to recall Clarkson and May doing that to Hammond in one exotic car, such that the seat went so far back and the pedals went so far down he couldn't reach them. And it reset itself like that every time he got in, probably with Genesis superglued into the cd player on full volume.
Oh how we laughed.
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I suppose I should read the Focus manual but cba.
Not to say I'm illiterate, but inn the past 8 days I've red Bill Bryson ' The Road to Little Dribbling' 'Weatherland, writers & artists under English Skies', and finished both 'Gone' by Mo Hayder and 'The Frozen Dead' by Bernard Minier.
I've still not looked to see how many pages the car manual has but Brysons has 476.
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Who needs a manual when there's this here forum to sort your problems? ;-)
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Well, I take your point but it wasn't obvious to me that to open the tail gate with the key it needed a 'long' press, and me not having a lot of patience, I never got that far!
Neither was it obvious that the stop start doesn't work with the drivers seat belt off, and that's why it didn't work around Eurotunnel despite there being a need for it to with the queues.
I checked those two things this morning and found it actually very interesting now I know my way around the car.
Pat
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I think as we've moved from the 'one switch = one function' era into the brave new world of 'one softswitch with multiple menu layers' it's become more difficult to work out what does what without RTFM.
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>> I think as we've moved from the 'one switch = one function' era
>>
When do you think that happened, I can remember multi function switches in the 70s & the programmable functions started to appear on some fancier cars in the 80s (High spec Rover SD1 is the first one I saw it on).
Anybody with a better memory / breadth of experience than me like to hazard a guess?
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...with the BMW one being an in-car display on the multifunction screen, you need to read the manual to find out how to read the manual......... :-)
...recursive; see recursive....
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How many pages on seatbelts, restraint systems etc?
One thing noticed was that section - which I always put down to 'common sense' - was always huge. Heading off the possibility of litigation, perhaps?
"M'Lud, despite the plaintiff not being belted in, and having a 50kg dog and two toddlers unrestrained on the backseat, he feels that he wasn't sufficiently forewarned by the manufacturer that he should use restraint systems, and is asking for a squillion pounds in damages."
Last edited by: Ian (Cape Town) on Wed 24 Aug 16 at 05:05
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Volvo 240
Driver's manual 110 pages A5
Workshop manual 330 pages A4
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How big is yours? - Old Navy
