Owner manuals spend most of their time in the glove box and a rarely read.
While you may occasionally pull them out to look at something specific, most people don’t give them a second thought.
However, Bristol Street Motors was curious about them so they conducted a study which found that 60% of motorists didn’t bother reading their manual before driving for the first time. The study also found that a majority of people would rather get information about issues with their car from YouTube, the internet or friends and family.
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However, 29% of respondents said they read their owner’s manual in full. That’s somewhat surprising as most manuals are about as exciting as watching paint dry and include sections on equipment your car might not even have.
It’s also worth noting that manuals have gotten longer as cars have become better equipped and more high tech. That can be seen in the study’s estimated reading times for the UK’s 30 most popular vehicles.
According to the study, it would take owners approximately 11 hours and 45 minutes to read the manual that comes with the Audi A3. The nearest competitors, the Seat Ibiza and Mercedes C-Class, are nearly an hour behind as both of those manuals will take owners about 11 hours to read. Rounding out the top five spots were the Mercedes A-Class (10 hours and 4 minutes) and Kia Sportage (9 hours and 21 minutes).
The study also compared the reading time of manuals to popular books, and found it takes longer to the read the A3’s manual than to read The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. In fact, the A3’s manual is so long that it’s right up there with Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
The study also noted that people typically own eight cars in their lifetime, so they’d spend an average of 2 days, 2 hours and 19 minutes reading all the manuals for them.
