I did the same thing, while I waited for CarMax to ship my truck in, it took a week (I could have drove down and got it faster lol), I read the PDF manual over the week I was waiting, YES I am a slow reader… lol
But to be honest, it IS the only vehicle I have ever read the owners manual for, all the others I could figure out in no time, I pick up very fast when hands on…
I read the owner’s manual before ordering a car, just to make sure I’m not misunderstanding what any of the fancier features are, so I guess you can add me to this list.
I just picked up a new to me Prius. 2013, so not even as “blingy” as ones today. When I got home with it I broke out the manual. That didn’t last. I didn’t have the patience for it. Maybe I’ll have to do like Dave and just go through it a little at a time.
“Read the owner’s manual” used to be a common reply from regular forum members to visitors’ questions, no effort made to answer the questions. As time goes on it becomes apparent that those forum members don’t read their own manuals.
Search “RTFM” and see how often questions are dismissed with that response.
I hear what you’re saying, but a lot of questions can indeed be answered by reading that owner’s manual
Today, I was assigned to do a service on a 2024 Toyota BZ4X, a vehicle I was unfamiliar with
We only have a handful assigned to our shop and Identifix had very limited information, just fluid specs and capacities and some torque specs
When it came time to confirm the maintenance, Identifix had nothing for me, so guess what . . .
That’s right
The owner manual . . . which I found online . . . had the reset procedure
I found out while trying to find customers owners manuals to find out if 1, 2 or 4 tires on their awd vehicles are required, that they get moved to different locations and for gotten about or just plain removed from the vehicle to make room for other crap in the glove box etc, or used vehicles just don’t have them due to someone along the way at some point removes them for whatever reason…
Some people have difficulty navigating through an owner’s manual.
If someone has time to make 10 to 20 replies each day, they can take 60 seconds to look up information in a manual.
After receiving snarky rejections, those visitors will never return. This forum is averaging just 3 new topics each day, and most are not genuine topics, they are from Car Complaints.
There is a huge literature on accidents/safety in complex techno systems. One of the main themes is that they are so complex that no ONE understands the whole. (Yes, each specialty understands their own - except that they don’t always understand it and are more worried about what they don’t understand about what they don’t understand - or more commonly “what we don’t know that we don’t know”).
Even highly trained operators in complex systems are easily overwhelmed by “the manual” - It’s TMI.
People and their cars are in this category at this point.
This does not apply to the gas cap tether except in a minor way. Huge teams of really smart engineers and such design 1001 “features” into a vehicle. Then it all gets written up in hundreds of pages. And then some schmoe off the street is supposed to master that? Good luck. At my age, I sometimes have trouble remembering my times tables.
But I can do the alphabet backwards. That’s just in case I get pulled over and since I’m tired an old, I don’t want to be mistaken for a drunk.
That said, I still know how to find a table of contents and index in an owners manual for when I have a specific question of some kind.
Yeah, every new(er) vehicle should come with a 2nd set of owners manuals, the 2nd for car guys without all the legal crap and TMI stuff you have to weed through just to find out something simple…
Most now also come with a thin “quick guide” that contains only the most important info to get you moving safely.
As thin as it is on mine at only 64 pages, it is still not a car guy version, I mean with in the 1st 10 pages it tells you how to open the non locking gas door and how to unscrew the gas cap to put gas in the thing, it also shows a pic of the instrument cluster and says what the speedo, tach, fuel and temp gauges are, I mean for a car guy - duhh… lol
I get showing what all 39ish Warning lights and indicators are and meanings, how to use the smart key, and push button start, but not how to use a standard key (non smart key), a car guy doesn’t need to be told how to pull up the e-brake handle to set the e-brakes,…
It could still be cut back to at least 1/2 of not 1/3 to a 1/4 of the total pages for a car guy/gal…
My wifes new car (Toyota Crown) - the owners manual is a PDF that can be accessed from the entertainment system
Come to think of it, yes. The one that skips telling me how to open the door and read the gauges and tie my shoe would be nice.
But of course, then there’s this. I also want the cat to come with a FSM. Talk about TMI. But no one is supposed to read those, of course. You just look up what you need when you need it.
One of my cars, many years ago (perhaps my '86 Taurus??) had 12 pages on how to use the seatbelts. I guess that this type of info is good to have for the neophyte driver, but–clearly–most people skip right past that type of stuff.
Nowadays, I focus on the part of the manual that has to do with the controls, plus how to “customize” the instrument panel and many of the features. In some cases, I accept the default setting, and in other cases, I override the defaults. I tend to “discover” other less-important things as I get used to the vehicle.
And, of course, every once in a while, I use the index to find something specific. What I find curious is that what I seek isn’t always in the section of the manual where I expected to find it.
I’d like access to the index in a PDF manual without having to scroll all the way to the end. Sometimes the table of contents isn’t enough. Having direct access to sections from the TOC would be good too. My M3 has these features but many other user’s manuals don’t.
If you are driving a late model hybrid or electric vehicle and want to know what the strange noise is while backing out of a garage or intermittently while moving forward, you can go to the index and look for “Vehicle Proximity Notification System”, the desired information is on page 84.
How could anyone know what the device is called before reading about it?
Sometimes experience is helpful.
Like I said, you can go ahead and read the 400 pages in the manual but then have to go back and look up again what it is you want to know. Unless you have a photographic memory I just don’t retain th3 details. Like how to change the fob battery. Like how to get it open.
Then I put a new air filter in the Pontiac. Stupid me I didn’t get it secure so I got a check engine light. Found the problem right away. Nowhere in the manual did it say how many drive cycles to turn it off. Finally heading to AZ to buy a cheap reader or have them shut the light off, it went off. Check your work boys and girls.
One of the best manuals was for my 59 VW. They had driving tips in it like to save on the brake shoes, don’t brake while turning. I think it was about 30 pages but that was 50 years ago so memory fades.
I think the first 100 pages in the last manual was on seat belts and baby seats.
I think you already know this, but just in case you or someone else doesn’t, hit control f for the search function in the PDF manuals… 
Indeed you are correct sir. Of course, my first stop these days is the web search rather than the owner’s manual. I’ve never actually read one, but I have looked things up.
But if I don’t know what to look for in the TOC or Index - yeah, it’s go to the web and type “why does my [year/make/model] do this thing…” It normally takes about 10 seconds to at least figure out what it’s called.
