I have been spending a fair amount of time with the Owner's Manual for my new 2017 Volt - specifically, the downloadable one, 2k17volt1stPrint.pdf.
It leaves a lot to be desired.
Leaving aside for the moment the deficiencies of a PDF document as compared to a well written hypertext document, I find the manual to be scattered and much less helpful than it could be. There is so much more information that I as a new owner would have liked to have found in the owner's manual, like some of the information and lore that I find in these forums. At the same time, I recognize that distributing a 500 page paper manual is not likely to happen. It would be an ambitious undertaking, but perhaps this forum could come up with a better alternative.
Then there are the errors - one that jumped out at me yesterday was on page 169, where brakes are discussed. Obviously some of the content was copied from every other GM owner's manual, but it's just wrong when applied to the Volt, and could cause an accident. The manual says to apply the brakes lightly after driving through a puddle or going through a carwash. In a Volt, that will do nothing to dry the brake rotors, because braking lightly will not apply the friction brakes, it will cause mild regeneration. The brakes will remain just as wet and ineffective.
I guess what I would really like is a cross between the information in the Owner's Manual, most of which is valuable if not necessarily well organized, and more extensive guidance like the best of the advice from these forums. And I don't have a suggestion about the ideal medium, HTML pages would probably be fine, but where/how?
Anyone else feel such a desire?
It leaves a lot to be desired.
Leaving aside for the moment the deficiencies of a PDF document as compared to a well written hypertext document, I find the manual to be scattered and much less helpful than it could be. There is so much more information that I as a new owner would have liked to have found in the owner's manual, like some of the information and lore that I find in these forums. At the same time, I recognize that distributing a 500 page paper manual is not likely to happen. It would be an ambitious undertaking, but perhaps this forum could come up with a better alternative.
Then there are the errors - one that jumped out at me yesterday was on page 169, where brakes are discussed. Obviously some of the content was copied from every other GM owner's manual, but it's just wrong when applied to the Volt, and could cause an accident. The manual says to apply the brakes lightly after driving through a puddle or going through a carwash. In a Volt, that will do nothing to dry the brake rotors, because braking lightly will not apply the friction brakes, it will cause mild regeneration. The brakes will remain just as wet and ineffective.
I guess what I would really like is a cross between the information in the Owner's Manual, most of which is valuable if not necessarily well organized, and more extensive guidance like the best of the advice from these forums. And I don't have a suggestion about the ideal medium, HTML pages would probably be fine, but where/how?
Anyone else feel such a desire?
