My question is, do people bother to read/use vehicle manuals anymore?

It seems as if there are a good number of questions posted regularly on this and other boards the answers to which could easily have been found in the car's manual.

I know that Lexus manuals now are many hundreds of pages long, but most information can easily be found by using either the index at the end of the manual or the pictorial index at the beginning of the manual. And, if you download the pdf version of the manual, using the pdf reader's search function can often make finding information even quicker.

I can't say that I'm particularly annoyed when people post questions whose answers could be found in the manual, but it strikes me that, more often than not, those answers could be found using the manual in less time than it takes to log in and post the question on the internet, and finding the answers in the manual has the bonus of avoiding having to wait for someone to post an answer, which might or might not be a correct answer.

 

I'm a lot older than most here, but when I get a new car (which is frequent) I always bring the manual in the house and thumb through it. As questions come up it's nearby and I can look things up. I've found while doing this I come across things that I hadn't thought of, or didn't know about. After a few days I'll put the manual back in the car and use it as necessary. For me anyway, it is more efficient than posting a thread (or doing a search) waiting for replies and hoping they are correct.

Different strokes - Sometimes a good conversation will start if the thread strikes a chord with other drivers.

 

Like LexBob I too am old and have been reading the manuals since I was about 10 years old. That was always my job - to read the manual. I've even read the manuals in rental cars or loaners when available. How's that for crazy.

Dave Mac

 

Haha - we must be close to the same age - we bring the books in too and go through them at a leisurely pace until we get bored with them. We also find the abbreviated quick start guides very helpful. I think the new car smell sticks to the books as well and makes me feel good about the new toy without having to go all the way out to the garage to keep checking it out.

 

+1 to all of the above. I also, when I get a new car, take the manual into the house and, while I don't read every word, I skim through it. Doing so gives me a general familiarity with the operation of the car. Like with LexBob2, when I do so, I often discover features of the car and capabilities of the car that I otherwise might not have known about.

When I post answers to the questions of others here, I often either quote from the manual or include a page reference from the manual. I do that because (a) I figure that the manual's explanation might be clearer than any words that I might come up with and (b) the manual is more likely to be giving accurate information than I and others might be providing on our own. If I can find the appropriate manual references in seconds, the people who are asking the questions should be able to do the same. And, if they did so, they would be increasing their chances of getting accurate information, and they would be finding the answers to their questions more quickly than when they ask the questions on an internet forum.

 

I memorized my MB manual, haven't done it yet with the Lexus manual. Maybe it's like 500 pages? It's not the easiest manual to find information in. Or I'm too old and dense to understand the instructions?

 

As I said in the original post, if you just use the pictorial index at the beginning of the manual and find the button, information display, or other control that you want to know about, it will point your right to the appropriate change in the manual. Alternatively, if you use the pdf download of the manual, using the search feature of the pdf reader will quickly point you to the pages that contain the information you are looking for.

I find that, even though the ES manual and the manuals for other modern day cars are much longer than they used to be, the way that they are well organized and the ability to search with electronic versions of them makes it easier to find information now than it was with much shorter manuals years ago.

 

Gentlemen,

The truth is all in here have read their manual thoroughly. People asked these silly questions anyway because they miss reading your responses

 

I'm 32 and I read my manual. Pretty sure I read it while sitting in the driver seat at my house too. Some of the topics that I needed further explaining I would YouTube or google the topic. Most of the time it would lead me to here. Lol

 

Help me find the right wiper blade size in my manual. I've been looking over my 900 page manual and can't find where it says the wiper blade size. It's time to replace them and I want Bosch Icons, but what size? Googling for information says either 26" or 24" for driver's side and 18" or 19" on the passenger side. Am I gonna have to stand in the rain and measure these suckers? Also for a point of reference my MBZ suv used 22" for both wipers, a 26" sounds huge!

 

Autozone lists 26" and 19" Bosch Icons for 2016 ES350.

 

I usually just look through the guide at the auto parts store for wiper blade replacements. But, for the fun of it, I just went to Bosch's website and looked them up. It shows to get 19B for the right side and 26A for the left. These are the part numbers for the Icons. That matches up with the sizes bgaerttner listed.

 

Out of curiosity, I also checked a few sites for the correct size. I was consistently finding 26 inches for the driver's side, but I found 18 inches for the passenger side from several sources.

If it was my car, I'd go out to the car with a tape measure, and, after measuring the size of the wiper blades that came with the car, that is what I would get.

 

I went and measured them this morning and I've got 18 for the passenger side. I was planning on ordering them through Amazon, but I think I'll head over to Auto zone after the superbowl and get them in person.

 

I definitely read parts of it - parts that interest me most and which are immediately most relevant to my questions. If the car does something I have no explanation for - I consult the manual first. But I admit these are not the best written manuals (though graphics are nice) - often the language is ambiguous and not very user friendly.