A new study found that popular car manuals take longer to read than some favourite books.
- Reading the owner’s manual for a car is essential for safety, but currently 56% of drivers say they’ve never read the manual for ANY vehicle they have driven
- This may be down to the size of car manuals, with new research revealing certain manuals would take more than 13 hours to read in their entirety
- Manuals including those for the Mercedes G-Class and Ford F-150 even take longer to read than popular books such as Michelle Obama’s memoir, ‘A Brief History of Time’ by Stephen Hawking and ‘1984’ by George Orwell.
- Experts have detailed how to use AI to quickly gain essential information from an owner’s manual
New research by junk car price comparison service Wheelsaway has revealed that the owners’ manuals of many popular cars require more reading time than famous books – from classics like 1984 to current bestseller The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins.
The study analysed the number of words in the owner’s manuals of more than 120 popular cars, before calculating how long each would take to read in full, based on the average reading speed of 238 words per minute.
Does anyone actually read their owner’s manual?
The results reveal that most manuals are a major time sink, comprising of an average of 100,997 words, which would take most people almost an entire working day (7 hours and 4 minutes) to read.
This may be the reason why so many drivers avoid reading their manuals entirely, with an accompanying survey from Wheelsaway showing that the majority (56%) say they’ve never read a manual for any car that they own and one in ten even admit that they don’t know where the manual to their vehicle is.
Which car manuals take the longest time to read?
Regardless of time required, owner’s manuals are a widely recommended read for any driver, with the contents covering crucial information around everything from what a warning light means, to model-specific maintenance guidance.
Some cars make it a longer task than others, with the Mercedes G-Class requiring an eye-watering 13 hours and 1 minute to read its 185,783 words. Nicknamed the G-Wagon, it’s a car popular with celebrities including Kim Kardashian and Bradley Cooper, however comes with a time-intensive manual that is almost as long as J.R.R. Tolkien classic ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’ (13 hours and 9 minutes) – and longer than Michelle Obama’s memoir ‘Becoming’ (11 hours and 56 minutes).
In fact, the top seven cars with the longest owner’s manuals, which include the Ram Pickup 3500 and the ever-popular Ford F-150, all take more than 10 hours to digest. This means they’re a longer read than current bestseller ‘The Let Them Theory’ by Mel Robbins (6 hours 54 minutes) or even reading ‘A Brief History of Time’ by Stephen Hawking, and Albert Einstein’s groundbreaking ‘Relativity: The Special and General Theory’ back-to-back!
The top 20 longest owners’ manuals to read:
Can you use AI to ‘read’ your owner’s manual and save time?
The research also revealed that in 2025, more than 1 in 3 drivers (41%) are taking to the likes of Google and YouTube to learn about their car, rather than spend the time reading their owner’s manual. The growing popularity of AI platforms such as ChatGPT also suggests many will turn to these artificial assistants to aid them with questions about their car, but should they?
Gareth Kemp, the Founder of AI Potential thinks so and has previously used it to locate his car’s cigarette lighter when even the dealership couldn’t help but warns that while “AI can make finding answers much faster, it only will if you feed it the right information”.
AI can be prone to ‘hallucinations’ and needs to be kept focused, so Gareth has suggested some simple tips and terminology to use, when aiming to navigate your car manual quickly.
“Start by downloading your exact manual from the manufacturer’s website and upload it to the AI, telling it to only use that document for answers. Make sure to include safeguards in your prompt such as:
- “Base your answer only on the text below; if there is no match, say so.”
- “If the answer is not in the provided information, say ‘Not found’.”
- “If you are unsure, list possible options and state your confidence level.”
Gareth said, “AI will not replace your car manual. It will simply make it usable” but also that drivers need to remember that “AI outputs are not legally guaranteed to be correct. If you act on them without checking the official manual, liability rests with you rather than the AI provider. Always double-check safety-critical instructions before attempting repairs, or your knuckles (and your wallet) might regret it”.
A spokesperson for Wheelsaway added, “Cars are often the biggest piece of machinery (and technology) many of us will ever own, so taking the time to learn about how it works or what to do when something goes wrong is incredibly important.
“However, as our data shows, not everyone is going to have a spare 13 hours to read their manual cover to cover, so it’s wise to think about what you really need to know, and make sure you get that information before driving.
“Think about key questions such as ‘what do the warning lights mean’, ‘how to turn on the headlights’, ‘how to operate features such as lane assist and cruise control’ and go from there. No matter how much time you spend doing this, the main aim should always be to ensure you’re safe before setting out on a journey”.
