I’ve consulted the manual in my current vehicle, Mazda3, far more than any in the past. The audio system and the clock/trip computer are less than intuitive to someone who has owned nothing but Hondas in the past. Nothing is sacred, obviously, because I’d be spending even more time reading the manual for a new Civic or Accord!!! The Accord’s pseduo-iDrive alone needs a separate, leather-bound instruction manual. I say leather-bound because it will need to hold up well being used on a daily basis…

Things like figuring out how to turn the service needed soon light off after I do an oil change and other complexities of modern cars have me hitting the book.

However, our newest car has a nav system and bluetooth so it took some concentrated reading by my wife and I both to figure all that stuff out. And I think its going to require a re-read!

I have owned a number of cars from the same manufacturer and many of the electronic gizmo features have remained similar over time, but occasionally the location or exact function changes.

As a result, I am constantly pressing the wrong button on the dash, the key fob, or setting the clock when I want to set the radio station or some such misadventure. Always minor, but occasionally fun. Especially the time I was using the key fob without actually looking at it and thinking I was opening the hatch and instead was activating the remote start…

When I first got the wagon I had to spend a half hour learning how the back seat folds flat into the floor. I had to do this because it wouldn’t move no matter what I did and later found out it was merely stuck.

I didn’t open the owner’s manual to any of the three Saturn’s we had. I’m not exactly sure if that means that they were simpler and therefore better or if I just didn’t care enough…

I was riding in a friend’s 1989 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight Regency, and the date/time not being set correctly bothered me. The darned thing has a 0-10 keypad on it– and a reset button to, you know– reset things.

Seems, in hindsight, that the thing just worked. Oh yeah– the car has 280k miles, and the change oil message has been displayed for the past 18 months. She does not mantain the automobile, but it keeps going– it seems almost as if GM built a good automobile.

I read owner’s manuals in every car I sit in. I’ve always loved the line-art, and knowing more about other people’s cars than they do.

Intersting things i have found:

2001 M5 Manual – pdf version listed 10W-60 as preferred oil – Engine bay list 5W-30 – Manual in the glove box had a full page sticker over the original page which said 5W-30 but the original page listed 10w-60. I switched to using the 10W-60 in warm weather and reverted to 5W-30 in winter and had much less of a problem with oil consumption than many other owners using 5W-30 exclusively.

2004 M3 – SMG equipped – launch control procedure – this made the stop light drag race completely unfair for everyone else ;)

2007 RS4 – Not nearly as intersting but i had to consult it to get audio files set up right on my SD card for the in dash MP3 player and to learn how to reset the service interval computer when I changed the oil.

You want to see a contrast in styles, you ought to see the difference between the Shop Manual for my 58 Chevy and the Owner’s Manual for my 2004 Mazda6. From two different worlds.

Haynes and Bentley cover me pretty well. Mostly Haynes. Simplicity ftw!

I don’t do it so I can consider myself more educated about my vehicles, I do it as a testament to the progressively more retarded button setups and unintuitive lights and symbols on the dash.

I took an interface design class back in school. Our final project was to re-design a campus touch screen phone system. Every other person’s phone was a single screen of no less than 50 buttons displayed at once.

I can only assume most of the class went on to design i-drive and my 2005 FX35’s radio and temperature controls.

Sidenote, I’ve had my 2008 Wrangler Unlimited for 4 months now (3rd jeep, btw) and I STILL cannot get the top up in less than 10 minutes.

2007 Focus-funny how the manual doesn’t mention the information stored in the ECU that can be accessed by holding the trip meter down for 5 seconds and turning the key on, but not starting the vehicle. Works in the ‘04-up F150 as well.

But then I have always read the manual. I read car blogs too. Not all that different.

I’m also astounded at how thick the package of manuals (note plural) is…the entire package is thicker than a phone book for a medium-sized city. My ‘63 Chevy’s manual was so thin that it was bound with two staples.