Just Thinking Out Loud

[baxter]

As I read over the many questions that subscribers inquire about, can't help but think that if that person would just open up and read the owners manual, he/she would have the answer. Just saying....

[BajaRon]

As I read over the many questions that subscribers inquire about, can't help but think that if that person would just open up and read the owners manual, he/she would have the answer. Just saying....

Very true. Always has been. But more true, I think, in this current 'Information Age'. I hate to be blunt. But reading comprehension is down and I fear becoming less and less all the time. We've raised several generations on videos. Granted, a good video can be very helpful. But in the absence of one. Reading is not the Go-To solution anymore.

Am I guilty of the same thing? Of course I am! Just trying to keep up with the times!

[ARtraveler]

There would be no fun for the SL members.

As a former professor at a college for 20 years...I saw the dumbing down of the population over the years. Some of my latter students made me wonder how they were even accepted in college. If it were not for computers, most would have been in a lot of trouble. Many students did not like me at the end. An F got an F...not a C for "effort."

[ARtraveler]

Very true. Always has been. But more true, I think, in this current 'Information Age'. I hate to be blunt. But reading comprehension is down and I fear becoming less and less all the time. We've raised several generations on videos. Granted, a good video can be very helpful. But in the absence of one. Reading is not the Go-To solution anymore.

Am I guilty of the same thing? Of course I am! Just trying to keep up with the times!

To paraphrase an old movie..."We don't need no steenkeeng manuals."

[Cobwebs]

There would be no fun for the SL members.

As a former professor at a college for 20 years...I saw the dumbing down of the population over the years. Some of my latter students made me wonder how they were even accepted in college. If it were not for computers, most would have been in a lot of trouble. Many students did not like me at the end. An F got an F...not a C for "effort."

By design imo way easier to herd the flock that way. Artificial intelligence bots are manipulated to push a narrative in either direction but seem like such a genius idea to the dummies. Why consult an owners manual or forum when you can receive an instant written or spoken answer and soon or probably now get a video of the task at hand with your choice of hollywood actor or whoever you want narrating it for you.
Boggles the mind the nefarious crap it will be used for by you know who.

[Haze]

Reading is getting to be a lost art.

[Snoking1127]

In the late 1960's - early 1970's I was trained on two different NCR large accounting machines. They had gates, flip-flops, drivers and other logic circuits built up on terminal strips with pins sticking out the back side. The wiring to make it work was wire wrapped on the back side pins using all white wires. Signals wend around 3 or 4 two by two foot or so panels. To follow a circuit you used the "address" of the starting point and had to look in the MANUAL to see where the "address" was for the other end. A real joy to work on it! I became one of the Seattle experts on repairing these accounting machines, and was sent to Alaska for a winter to help the locals up there. An accounting firm in Juneau would tell them to get the kid for Seattle to fly up for the next couple years when they had a problem that was stumping the local guy there.

[Gwolf]

I have manuals for just about every vehicle and piece of equipment I own. I can usually find an answer in them. Some of them are fairly easy to use. Some of the digital manuals have a poor search function, where you have to put in a specifically worded phrase or you get back 2 pages of possible places in the manual. If you put in too much search information, the results will come back with nothing found, when there is something there, but because of an extra search perimeter, it does not register. Some of them have a very poor index, or no index at all. It looks like some of the later digital manuals were just keyed in from a hard copy manual, and then some elementary search application was added to it. The worst ones are the ones translated from some other language by some translator who had no concept of mechanical terms.

[Stache]

It's easier to ask than to look something up. The risk is whether the person who answers the question has any idea what they're talking about.

There are WAY to many non-expert "Expert Opinions".

[MNF3]

If it’s on the internet it must be true, right?

[BamaJohn]

.....and there's the issue with more and more vehicle manufacturers no longer selling OEM service manuals to the public.

[tibadoe]

I enjoy reading the OM. I downloaded and read it twice, front to back when I started researching the Spyder. Then, I have found out, when you get the point of talking to the salespeople you have to educate them on the Spyder. Pretty much the same on anything from autos to tractors, and everything in between.

[Lew L]

Reading is getting to be a lost art.

. +1

[Gwolf]

I enjoy reading the OM. I downloaded and read it twice, front to back when I started researching the Spyder. Then, I have found out, when you get the point of talking to the salespeople you have to educate them on the Spyder. Pretty much the same on anything from autos to tractors, and everything in between.

It is not the Owner's Manual on a lot of the questions people have. The Owner's Manual does not have most of the technical and assembly information. What you need to work on the Spyder is the Service Manual which should be the same as the dealer service department use. The Owner's Manual is mainly just information about the operation of the machine, service intervals, and how the controls work. The Service Manual has all the information about removing the parts, testing them, repairing or replacing, and re-assembly.

You are right about the people at the dealership not knowing anything about what they are supposed to be selling and servicing. Maybe one or two people at the dealership might know about the mechanical and service items. You would not be allowed to talk to that one, because he is too busy actually doing the work back in the shop. All the rest of them just try to pass the buck on any questions and you never get a satisfactory answer.

[Raven]

I was surprised with the Ryker owners manual. There was a lot of useful information in it.
Not a shop manual, but ok.
KTM had the best one ever.
It came with what looked like a brief case.
There was a owners manual, a shop manual that had step by step on rebuilding everything, a parts book and a manual for the forks and another for the shock.

[Bangorbob]

I was never good at Art.

[ARtraveler]

In the late 1960's - early 1970's I was trained on two different NCR large accounting machines. They had gates, flip-flops, drivers and other logic circuits built up on terminal strips with pins sticking out the back side. The wiring to make it work was wire wrapped on the back side pins using all white wires. Signals wend around 3 or 4 two by two foot or so panels. To follow a circuit you used the "address" of the starting point and had to look in the MANUAL to see where the "address" was for the other end. A real joy to work on it! I became one of the Seattle experts on repairing these accounting machines, and was sent to Alaska for a winter to help the locals up there. An accounting firm in Juneau would tell them to get the kid for Seattle to fly up for the next couple years when they had a problem that was stumping the local guy there.

The NCR accounting machine sounds like an interesting piece of equipment. By the time I got into accounting (1990's) computers were well into use.

I used to know how to use a Comptometer and a Monroe Calculator though. And there was also the course in Gregg Shorthand. Anyone remember them???

[Dasmoetorhead]

My Dad always said, if all else fails Read the manual.

[tibadoe]

............What you need to work on the Spyder is the Service Manual which should be the same as the dealer service department use. The Owner's Manual is mainly just information about the operation of the machine, service intervals, and how the controls work. The Service Manual has all the information about removing the parts, testing them, repairing or replacing, and re-assembly..

Now I don't read the service manual cover to cover......only the sections that pertain to what I will be working on. But if most will not even open the OM, it's a lost cause on a SM.

[Peter Aawen]

As I read over the many questions that subscribers inquire about, can't help but think that if that person would just open up and read the owners manual, he/she would have the answer. Just saying....

I dunno Baxter, while I can understand (probably better than most! ) the frustrations that you might feel seeing all these questions being posed that could/should (maybe.... ) be avoided if only the poster would read the Owner's Manual; but have you seen how many posts we have here on this Forum alone highlighting all the errors, inexcusable mistakes, no longer valid carry-overs, and even blatantly stupid incorrect entries that there are in the Owner's Manuals we get from BRP??

It's been like that from the start; they'e even been known to have pearls of wisdom in there that don't even apply to our machines, as they belong to other totally unrelated products from BRP! There's often whole sections that look like cut and paste jobs from previous/different models that either no longer apply or don't apply at all; and then there's those blatant errors, things that even the most rudimentary of proof-reading checks should've revealed as needing urgent correction... and yet there they are, still in the document that supposedly tells the New Owner/Operator how to safely & reliably operate their machine! The Owner's Manuals we get for these things are Well Beyond being just a comedy of errors!

But you're right, it would help answer many of the questions raised here if people would only read the instructions first..... not only those in the Owner's Manual, but also the Forum Rules & the Stickies; and why the heck can't people do even the most basic of searches and spend a bit of time reading what's already been posted BEFORE posting yet another thread/question about things that've been asked and answered so often already?? .





First World problems, hey?! There again, we are trying to be a welcoming and sharing community of people with a common interest in these remarkable machines that for most, deliver many many miles of smiles and are a real blast to ride at whatever level might take the rider's fancy on any given day - and the machines do that DESPITE the little engineering/production/manufacturer's decion type niggles that could spoil it for you, if you let them.... just like those questions could spoil any enjoyment you might get from just reading, let alone sharing your knowledge & experiences here on the Forum, if you let them

Just Sayin'

Maybe we should just....



Ryde More, Worry Less!

[spyderider1]

I don't believe the Owner's Manual can help troubleshoot. I currently have a Coolant Leak. The Manual tells me my model has .9 gallons of Coolant but it doesn't help me troubleshoot the problem or find the leak. By posting here, I would hope that others have had the same experience and how they remedied it.

As individuals we suffer in silence and solitude, but collectively we can express our misfortunes and mistakes together. I once thought I'd made a mistake....but I was wrong.