Cars with manual books as thick as novels: Why Youtube, auto sites are preferred

In an interesting study carried out recently in the UK, it has been found that an overwhelming majority of car buyers have hardly ever referred to the owner';s manual inside their vehicles for anything at all. In case of queries or if a possible problem has a DIY solution, most prefer watching help videos on Youtube or logging on to car-care websites.

The study, conducted by Bristol Street Motors, found that just 37% of car owners who participated in the process said they had referred to the owner's manual inside their vehicles. 60% said they had never even opened the booklet, some of which can have as many pages as a Harry Potter book.

The study also examined the manual books inside 30 popular car models in the UK and found that the one inside Audi A3 had a total of 167,699 words which, it estimated, would take 11 hours and 45 minutes to complete from page 1 to last. That is almost as long as it would take to complete Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince or The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.

Little wonder then that auto websites are considered far more convenient to find out required details of any car model and for queries and specific problems, Youtube was regarded as a major treasure trove which puts out information within minutes, and with visual aid.

A few car makers are now actually ditching the owner's manual completely because it is realized that more and more people choose to completely disregard it and use digital channels instead. Some cars now offer the owner's manual in the infotainment screen instead. This also has the added benefit of being good for the environment because printing page-after-page for the manual which may not ever be read is regarded by many as a wasteful exercis

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