The changing thickness of manuals

[Jeff_Birt]

(12-07-2022 06:52 PM)Maximilian Hohmann Wrote:  With my present car the only time I had to look into the manual, which I had downloaded to my iPad even before going to the dealer to collect the car, was to find out how to disable the annoying automatic windshield wipers...

I use the owner's manuals of my cars quite often to look up things like proper lubricants, types of bulbs, etc. About a year ago I bought a second-hand Mini Countryman and a month or so later realized there was an idiot light illuminated, on the upper center console, having to do with the passenger side airbag. The 'universal' icon used gave no real indication if the light was signifying a normal operating condition or a malfunction (i.e. thinking there is a small passenger in the seat and shutting off the airbag.)

Searching online revealed that on some years of cars Mini chose to make the light indicate an error condition and on other years it indicated normal operation. Brilliant. The owner's manual was useless as it never just did come out and say what the bloody light meant. I had to get out my scan tool and interrogate the passenger seat weight sensor to see when it sensed no passenger, a small passenger and a regular passenger. Then I could watch the status of the light while looking at sensor data to divine what the bloody light meant.

Turns out the light was illuminated when the seat was in 'normal' condition and off when the airbag was deactivated. One clear sentence in the owner's manual calling out the function of each idiot light would have made it abundantly clear.