Care and Repair

Glovebox best-sellers

Quick, what’s black and white and read, well, nowhere? Hint: It’s a best-seller, year after year. Americans took home about 17 million copies in 2004 alone. Give up?

It’s the vehicle owner’s manual.

“It’s probably the most widely published book that’s never read, and that’s a shame, because it has a lot of good information in it,” says Kim Goering, process development manager in Ford’s customer service division.

Remember that little book crammed in your car’s glovebox? Well, they used to be little anyway. Now, an owner’s manual can run 350 pages, not including the entirely separate instruction guidebook for operation of the inscrutable navigation/computer contraptions that blight the dashboards of an increasing number of new cars. How far we’ve come. The Model T Instruction Book (sixth edition, May 1913) runs just 45 pages and fits in a shirt pocket, while including directions for grinding the valves when needed.

Automakers say the manuals have become so big for two reasons. First, there are a lot of electronic widgets in cars today that weren’t there a few years ago, and their uses needs to be documented, in case some ambitious soul decides to try to learn how to make the horn not blow every time he uses the remote to lock the doors. “In the last five to 10 years, we’ve seen our books grow by at least 100 pages just because of the added electronics,” says Dave Linderman, manager of publications and delivery at Chrysler.

The other reason is the ample space required by government-mandated warnings and lawyer-mandated disclaimers. Example: “Warning! Eating floormats may violate Atkins diet.” Lawyers worry about every little thing, don’t they?

Seriously, how about, “Warning! Carbon monoxide gas is toxic. Breathing it may cause unconsciousness and even kill you.” That’s in the Honda Odyssey manual. Or this, from the Mercedes CL55 AMG: “Warning! Heavy blows against the vehicle underbody or wheels/tires, for example when running over an obstacle, road debris, or a pothole, may cause serious damage and impair the operating safety of your vehicle.” So no Baja 1000 runs in the CL, ’kay?

Typically, however, there’s good, detailed information on topics like safely jump-starting a car with a dead battery, or driving in snow. The sections covering child safety seats and booster seats are quite helpful and should be required reading for parents.

It’s obvious from such information, which can serve as a useful reminder even for experienced drivers, that the creators of these manuals put a lot of effort into them. “In terms of development, it seems like it would be something that is very simple,” says Krys Clever, manager of GM’s owner information group. “But each year, as vehicles become more complex, the information that goes in there is more complex. Trying to translate the technical information into the eighth-grade reading level is pretty difficult.” And time consuming. “A typical program for development is 76 weeks, so it’s pretty early in the product-development cycle.”

Is all this work for naught if no one reads the book cover to cover? Clever says GM’s research shows that owners do open the book to look up answers to specific questions, so the information needs to be in there. Does that mean we have to wade through an encyclopedia’s worth of warnings to find out how to set the temperature?

“The guys who are the real techies, they go into the manuals,” says Walt Piekarski, manager of dealer workshop services for Mercedes-Benz. “The average customer says, ‘I don’t even use that because Quick Tips is a great reference.’” These laminated tip guides addressing common questions are now included by many manufacturers.

How do manufacturers decide what information belongs in the common tip guides? “One of the things we’re doing is looking at what are the call logs from our customer assistance center.” Piekarski says. “Our biggest call volume is on days when daylight savings goes forward or backward.” So you can be pretty sure all Mercedes Quick Tips include instruction on how to set the vehicle’s clock.

But this is the 21st century. Do we really need the dead-tree documents at all? Probably so, but automakers are experimenting with online data and other alternatives to help coach customers. Acura is testing a program with the TL, sending buyers brief instructional videos by e-mail. “We needed some kind of audiovisual multimedia type of piece that a salesperson could quickly show the customer,” says Dave Heath, senior manager of sales communications at Honda. For some reason, buyers are anxious to escape the dealer as quickly as possible, and won’t wait around to watch instructional videos. “Now, if you want to give your e-mail address, I’ll show you these little three minute tutorials.”

So...future owners manuals may look a lot like spam.

—Dan Carney
A veteran automotive journalist, Dan is a regular contributor to IntelliChoice and Motor Trend.