[Fiesta33460]

I am amazed at the number of questions or problems that appear here that have a simple answer: READ THE OWNERS MANUAL. It's a little book inside that black pouch in the glovebox of your car. Most of it is legalese crap for those mindless individuals who have no common sense and need a lawyer to tell them what not to do. The rest of us can read the pertinent info and learn about our new Fiestas. If you're confused about something on the car, check the manual. Odds are the answer is there. If not, we, your fellow owners, would love to help you find it.

 

[BRGT350]

You can find it online as well. I started reading it months before my car was built. The Fiesta is my first car with Sync, so I spend most of my time reading about that.

 

[Audrey]

Telling people to read instructions is typically done in vain. People that check things like that will have already done it before asking and people that don't habitually don't. Human nature.

 

[Corvair]

Owners manual

"Little book", it's huge. 357 pages. I still haven't found some symbols on the SYNC screen yet. Sometimes its just easier to ask, and some people like to tell you the answer if they know it. I do. It's part of the forum.

 

[MegEtc]

Personally, I hope folks feel free to ask other owners for their impressions and experiences, even if the manual is in the glovebox.

Most of the questions I've seen on this forum are not available in the owners manual - questions about the relative difficulty of getting Sync to understand you, the feel of the manual/automatic, and then questions for how to connect and play specific devices inside the car, whether you can get satellite without Sync and so on.

I've read the manual cover to cover (and I've read some chapters twice). The manual is written from the rigid perspective of everything operating perfectly and the user knows exactly which feature to use in any given situation and only needs to be told how to activate a feature. On the forum, I've seen lots of examples where forumites help a user figure out what's going wrong and whether something is a "bug" or a "feature" - something the manual is not particularly helpful with.

I'm not sure if anyone needs to do anything differently, but if your point was just to suggest each owner read the manual, then I think that's a good piece of advice. But posting questions about the Fiesta to the forum seems like a perfectly excellent use of the forum to me, even if the manual already covers an issue with a sentence or two.

 

[anverc]

not only that, but if you have a smart phone with/or e-reader, you can store your handbook there and search through it if you have any questions.

I really love having the handbook on my iPhone - when my wife's fiesta was being delivered she had a question and the dealer started trying to find it in the book... I raced him using my phone and won

 

[MGREEN11]

It's easier to understand layman terms

I agree with MegEtc because most manuals are rigidly composed and really say more than it has to. Sometimes it's easier to explain something in layman terms succinctly and concisely as possible and if somebody within the forum can explain something in 20 words or less while the manual does it in two pages, I'll take the shorter version.

 

[tjl]

"Little book", it's huge. 357 pages.

It is actually one of the smaller recent owner's manuals that I have seen. I saw one for a recent Lexus that was something like 500 pages, plus an additional supplement of 300 or so pages for the navigation system.

 

[Corvair]

It is actually one of the smaller recent owner's manuals that I have seen. I saw one for a recent Lexus that was something like 500 pages, plus an additional supplement of 300 or so pages for the navigation system.

Chrysler is starting to use CD's instead of the manual. Too much stuff.

 

[GapBoyPCS]

Chrysler is starting to use CD's instead of the manual. Too much stuff.

The main reason is the environment (Environmental sustainability) - you don't kill as many trees printing out a few hundred page x numbers of cars (see Autoblog's post). That, and churning out DVDs costs them less than printing on paper.

Some other cars got trendy and decided to put the owner's manual on an Apple iPad (I think the Hyundai Equus was one).

 

[tjl]

Chrysler is starting to use CD's instead of the manual. Too much stuff.

The funny thing is, they have an abridged printed version called a "User's Guide". In a rented Chrysler car recently, it was actually in the glove compartment (unlike most rental cars, which have no owner's manual or anything like it there).

In size and content, it looked like owner's manuals of 20 years ago (about 100 pages, but described all of the controls in the car), although it was printed in full color, unlike most owner's manuals then and now. It even had the maintenance schedule and all of the fluid specifications except for one. The one thing missing was the fuel specification and how to refuel the car. Fortunately, the fuel filler was not hard to find, and it ran on ordinary 87 octane regular gasoline.

 

[Matthew Wolfe]

What instruction manual? Just push random buttons till you figure it out is my motto. I still wonder why they wouldn't let me be a pilot.....

 

[Corvair]

Also, the owners manual case is impressive. What kind of case does a Lincoln have?

 

[Audrey]

What instruction manual? Just push random buttons till you figure it out is my motto. I still wonder why they wouldn't let me be a pilot.....

Approved!

This is the approach of any good troubleshooter. (;

 

[LMTech]

Also, the owners manual case is impressive. What kind of case does a Lincoln have?

Same design only in leather.

 

[Sibilance7]

I searched and the only places I can find it online require me to sign up and give them my email address so they can spam me. Does anyone know of a better place to find a pdf of the owner's manual?

 

[Tink75]

Go to http://www.motorcraftservice.com/vdirs/retail/default.asp?pageid=&gutsid=&kevin=rules

click on owners guide on the left side
then choose 2011 Fiesta
and 2nd printing
then push view content

 

[GapBoyPCS]

I searched and the only places I can find it online require me to sign up and give them my email address so they can spam me. Does anyone know of a better place to find a pdf of the owner's manual?

What sites are you referring to?

The ones from Ford don't ask you for content unless you're signing up for their Owner website. But you should be able to download it without registering it through the "Glovebox" menu at Official Ford, Lincoln & Mercury Owner Site | Personalized Owner Information | FLMowner.com

There's also their fleet side of things: https://www.fleet.ford.com/maintenance/owners_manuals/default.asp

 

[Sibilance7]

I can't remember the exact name of the site, but it was one of those places where users upload content and then you can download it if you sign up for a "free" account. Sites like the Pirate Bay and what have you. I think I just wasn't sure how to find the official Ford site - I couldn't find a link on the Fiesta site and my searches weren't worded right or something to bring up the official site. Thanks for the link, Tink75! I downloaded it with no problems, and now I'll have some reading to keep me occupied until my Fiesta gets here!