We picked up our Prius last Monday evening. (Driftwood Pearl #3) Of course, we really like it. The manual, OTOH,... First thing is kind of silly. You figure a big company like Toyota would employ some good proofreaders. I mean, I'm used to seeing instructions for computer equipment made somewhere else in a non-English speaking country. It's really funny if the impaired instructions don't impair any important information. I just didn't expect to see it from Toyota. (Everyone have their manuals out?) On page 159, "When a nozzle become block..." And then the same mistake is made on 161! (Dang! There was another real funny one - now I can't find it. I'll post it later.) But there's something that really digs at me about the manual. In discussing the audio system (beginning page 219) it discusses it from the point of view of either having an AUX adapter or not having one. Well, we have an AUX adapter, but, our console display (the one that shows the backup camera's view, the different information, basically the touch screen) does not look like the one on 219. It looks like the one on page 222, where the manual discusses the audio system that doesn't have an AUX adapter. What the heck? Why doesn't ours have those extra buttons? I do not know...the manual (atleast where I read) doesn't even discuss how to put the car in "accessory" mode. I found that out by calling the dealer. I tried to explain it to somebody today at the dealership, but I couldn't explain it very well over the phone. But hey, at least our phone was synched up nicely, by our sales consultant even. Sigh...I guess I'll have to take the manual to the dealer next time I'm in that area. Sigh...
Did they at least remove the duplication? Poor English was bad enough but reading it twice was awful. It is indeed a shame Toyota couldn't find someone who spoke English as a first language to write or edit the book. Maybe if they didn't spend the money & effort on the reverse beep...
The Prius manuals are pretty bad. I don't know why they don't hire a native English speaking writer to clean them up. It wouldn't be very hard. Tom
The Prius manuals are written in Janglish. CAUTION: JANGLISH WARNING! Reading this manual will jangle your nerves. Take a look at John1701a's user guide, much friendlier.
Here's my favorite (in the Navigation manual): "Touch register of the memory points." And try to figure this out: "Accurate current vehicle position may not be shown in the following cases: When driving on a small angled Y-shaped road [can't quite picture this] When driving on a winding road. When driving on a long straight road." Huhhh? Well when exactly will it be accurate?
No argument here. Toyota should outsource the writing of their manuals to Honda. The manual for my GF's Civic is a masterpiece of clarity. (In exchange Honda could license the HSD... I know, I know, but a guy can dream, can't he?)
Well, I guess when you're driving on a short, straight road? I guess I've come to expect crappy manual-writing, cause I missed most of this, but it's funny stuff.
I know what this is - if the road splits (e.g., an offramp) with only a slight angular difference between one route and the other, the GPS can guess wrong and show you on the main road while you're on the offramp or vice versa. Like my Garmin, the Toyota GPS apparently uses direction of travel to improve the accuracy of the displayed location.
I am a teacher and we are always looking for fun interesting things for us to edit ....I will keep this in the back of my mind for a great lesson plan ahahah then maybe we can submit it to Toyota!!
I don't know what's up with manuals these days, but it's almost universal in my experience. They're not only wrong at times, but they don't even give you the instructions on how to operate the blooming thing - thus resort to PC for info on how to do stuff like turning off the reverse beep! Speaking of manuals, have you ever tried to learn how to use a BlackBerry with the manual? Rots of Ruck.
Nope, the duplication is there. Yeah, I'm about to the point of my first "mod" and taking out the beep. Is that most people's first one?
Hey that user guide is great! Has somebody made that link a "sticky" yet? A user guide written in American - what more can one ask for? Thanks for the info, Bill.
I'm probably going to take it in for some VIN etching in the next week or so and you can bet I'll be having some discussion about the manual then. :smash:
