Hughes Auto Body

Your Owner's Manual is a Must Read

Many highly-educated and normally very smart people just don't want to read their owner's manuals, which leaves them guessing rather than knowing important information about their car. Whenever we purchase anything new that requires instructions, many of us want to jump in and use it without taking the time to do their due diligence. Here at Hughes Auto Body, we want you to get the most out of your new or previously owned vehicle, so here are some reasons why you should carefully read your owner's manual and refer to it every once in a while. 

Carefully studying your owner’s manual will provide you with more useful information than you might ever anticipate. The majority of everything you read in your manual might appear to be simply common sense, but you can also discover other things that can assist you to be better and safer driver overall.

If you have misplaced your owner's manual, remember that you can also access them online. A basic search for “owner’s manual” including your car’s make, model and year will lead you to a free electronic copy of your manual. Print it out and put it in your glove box for quick and easy reference.

Today's high-tech cars are essentially large computers on wheels, so if you own a newer vehicle, your owner's manual. With so much new technology integrated into every system within your car, your owner's manual is more important now than ever before.

So, here are a few things you can learn from going through your owner's manual, because you never know what great feature or helpful tip will be revealed.

• Learn all the little nuances of your car. Some cars can automatically lower the windows on a humid summer day with simply the key remote. Try pressing the unlock button and then releasing it, then pressing it again and holding it down. Your car, especially if it was made within the past 2-3 years, likely has a wide range of little functions that what we call "bells and whistles". If you're not referring to your owner's manual, you might be missing on this invaluable information.

• Alter your setting preferences. Were you aware of the fact that a car’s headlights can be adjusted beyond the couple of settings you usually switch between? If you feel like your headlights are too dull or too bright, refer to your manual to learn how to replace them.

• Schedule an oil change. Different vehicles have vastly disparate intervals for when its time to do an oil change. Your manual can recommend how frequently a particular vehicle needs every kind of maintenance, including an oil change.

• Know where your spare tire is. Too many drivers don't worry about the spare tire until they're broken down by the side of the road or how long they can drive on it. You can also find recommendations on size, type and brand of replacement tires in your manual.

Whether you live here in Berkeley, MO or anywhere else in the country, your owner's manual needs to be your go-to source for useful information about your car and everything else about it.

Sources: Wheels, Autoblog and Road Warrior