Agreed. Those windshield sunscreens with the shiny outside even have printed on them a warning not to drive with the screen in place. Tort law needs changing.
Some years back when I was still riding I bought a pro-level mountainbike frame to build to my own specs. It came with a sticker warning tha mountain biking can be dangerous. Duh!
I don’t like the idea of the manual on CD only either, but to say that the CD will melt is a bit ridiculous. I live in a very hot area, and none of my music CDs have ever melted in my cars.
Bad idea for car owners like us who actually READ their manuals. I’ve read every manual and booklet that came with my new 2010 car and listened to the supplied CD that guides you through OnStar and read the guide. I even downloaded the manual from the GM website onto my PC. If I bought a car with the OM only on CD, I’d darn sure print out a copy and put in the car.
I wonder how many people don’t even read their owner’s manuals? I know that it must be a high percentage which will probably increase if the makers go to OM’s on CD’s.
The head of the GM service division during an interview some years ago stated that they had just about given up all hope of getting vehicle owners to read the owners manual.
There are exceptions but the majority won’t exert the effort. Heck, even my oldest son is one of them. He bought a new '07 Dodge Caliber a few years back and when several issues arose (one of them being irregular tire wear due to non-rotation) he was carping about “how was he supposed to know”. This led to my pulling the owners manual out of the glove box and turning to the page where it stated tire rotations every 6k miles.
I agree that this is sort of a lousy idea, but the “green” factor is certainly there. Perhaps an “abridged” manual in print and the full length version on disc, with a website on the printed version to visit for a download in the event the disc is lost or damaged? The “abridged” version could have the maintenance schedule and pertinent operating instructions in it, and maybe be 40-60 pages long, like they were in the '70s and '80s. The disc or download versions can contain the legalistic lawsuit prevention measures, like telling people not to drive at night with no headlights on or not to put your legs under the car and shake vigorously while changing a flat tire. This may not work, though. Someone will still get themselves hurt and complain that the information should have been in print, in the car, so they can read it while they drive and know that you need to use your headlights at night, or you could get into an accident because you can’t see.
In a word, “NO!” Has anyone else noticed its getting to be like pulling teeth to get a paper statement of anything these days? My bank and brokerage statements constantly come with the suggestion that I should go to online statements for “my” convenience. How is it convenient for me to use MY ink and paper to print the statement that youused to mail me for free. If they would admit that it is for THEIR convenience I might consider it (not).
A paper manual or statement is easy to open up and look at. When it goes online, it can become infinitely more complicated for those not technically inclined. For example, suppose you get an error message like “you cannot look at this because you do not have Adobe Acrobat installed on your computer”. Then when you try to download said software, you get an error message like “you cannot download Adobe Acrobat because it is already installed on your computer”. Now what do you do? Spend the next 6 hours on the phone with tech support? Go shopping for a new computer? With a paper book, you’d have had your answer and been on your way.
Mr. Cheap, you’ve clearly described a common problem with trying to get information from computers.
Another is constantly changing technology. What if they gave me a disc and five years from now when a warning light glows and I need to look something up computers have all changed completely to thumb drives? How then do I get the information?
And what if something happens while I’m perilously making my way through Newark and I’m without my laptop? What if I don’t even have a laptop? What of my laptop crashes?
An owners’ manual is a key piece of documentation that’ll need to be readily accessable for many years to come. Only a good old hard copy can guarantee that.
Lets also not forget those times when our power goes out and we can’t even access the computer(some of us only have a desktop and don’t want a laptop and phone internet is stupidly expensive to have for those few times you may use it)
As long as the electronic version is in addition to the paper version. If it becomes “instead of”, while I won’t be surprised, I will be very disappointed. Books are unrivalled for getting to the relevant page quickly. No electronic document can be flipped through or skim-read like a paper book.
I was thoroughly disgruntled when they stopped making paper manuals for my computer games, because that was horribly inconvenient and made useful information a lot harder to get at. Electronic car manuals won’t be any better, and most likely will be worse.
What’s next? Having a recorded “how to operate your car” play the first time you start it up? Or worse, every time you start it up?
NO,i don’t like that!! actually,i’m already in that boat.my current car has no printed factory repair manual at all.i did buy the factory cd-rom,but it’s all but worthless~it doesn’t work;even if it did,it would cost me an $$$annual fee$$$ to use!!! i prefer having the printed manual.you can keep it in the toolbox for emergencies,etc.
all of my previous cars,i had a repair manual-i actually liked sitting down and going through them chapter by chapter to learn some of the fine points of their designs(good,bad,or otherwise,lol)
Since none of the manufactures are going to consult either one of us, what difference does our opinion make. The only thing that would make them change their mind would be if customers would refuse to buy cars because of it in significant numbers.
can you log on to VW’s website and get a PDF of the manual from them?
All they have done is pass the responsibility and cost of printing on to the consumer. You’re not supposed to put the CD/DVD in the glovebox. It doesn’t matter if DVDs are obsolete in one year. When you bring the car home, YOU print the manual, read it and then put the printed manual in the glovebox. Simple as that.
It has pros and cons. Yes it is inconvenient and the cost has been passed on. If few people read them it’s less waste. You can print more than one copy. A few examples. …
In peering through my futurescope, I see the ?glass ? instrument panel becoming a regular feature of all cars. This would be a single large switchable screen containing all typical engine monitoring functions such as TEMP/OIL/BAT/GAS/RPM/radio/CD, as well as MPH/MPG/GPS/ readouts. This may even include a heads-up display for certain information like enhanced night visibility. While most of this technology already exist in various forms, combining these into a single display would considerably reduce manufacturing cost. Once there, it is a short leap to adding the owner?s manual/OBD readouts, and even a direct factory link for ECU/TCU updates. Most aircraft use this technology (glass cockpits), and John Deere has this setup with their harvesters on a world-wide basis. It?s only a matter of implementation. NOW??. Care to talk about replacement/repair cost whenever one component goes bad??? As someone already noted, are our views going to make a difference? Not a squat. Profits dictate design.
A battery back-up for your desktop computer isn’t too expensive.
MB and bscar, here is what you should do. On the way home from the dealership with your new car, stop at Kinkos, Office Depot, Office Max, or some other print shop. Show the man or woman behind the counter the disk and ask how much it will cost to have it printed in black and white. It shouldn’t cost you more than two or three cents per page. They can print it on paper that already has holes punched so you can just put it in a three ring binder, but you might prefer to have it bound with a spiral wire or a plastic comb instead. Of course it would be cheaper just to staple the document together. I doubt you would pay more than the car company adds to the price of your car to recover their printing costs.
I agree this decision is bad customer service, but I think you are overcomplicating the issue. You don’t need a special computer, or even upgrades to your current computer. Just print the darn thing and be done with it.
It’d cost $15 at 3 cents per page to print my whole owner’s manual, and that’s not counting my quick start guide, navigation booklet, and other little pamphlets that came with it. Good luck being able to find a stapler that could staple all 510 pages together in 1 go.
Hell, I got a PDF of my owner’s manual before I even got the car itself. Gave me plenty of time to go over it before the car came.