SpitfireS

What do you think of your manual?
Do you, without any question, "believe" and "do" everything it recommends and states?

My S2000 is 6 years old now, and has the updated oil-jet bolts, the updated spark plugs and the updated clutch.
Those are, in my way of looking at it, all parts that needed to be changed because the Honda engineers found out they were not up to specs.
My manual is also 6 years old.
In those 6 years there the world has not stopped turning and a lot of techniques and materials were developed.
Of course I'm thinking about materials to service the car.

Why has there never been any update for my manual regarding those materials?
IMO it wouldn't be wrong to service the car with newly developed materials that most likely surpass the materials used when designing the car.

Or is the manual the MANUAL. Period!
?


P.S. There is no need to change my mind, I'm asking for your well thought through opinion about this. That does not mean I will not change my mind when confronted with the proper argumentation and facts.

slimjim8201

The manual is more or less your base. It's the only logical place to start. I wouldn't call it the "bible" though.

The collective knowledge of many S2Ki members is what I consider the S2000 "bible".

xviper

I consider the owner's manual as a guide and an informational document, not as the "bible". There are elements of the manual that I feel are remiss in that it either lacks emphasis and clarification where this would be most needed or it contains information that was penned by the legal department.
It is up to the educated and informed owner to sift through this stuff and make a better interpretation. However, where the owner lacks that knowledge base, for legal reasons and for reasons of potential future warranty claims, then the manual should become more of a "bible".

SheDrivesIt

If you are talking about the service manual, it gets updated every year.

Elistan

I have the 2000-2003 manual for my MY00, because of when I purchased the manual. I have no idea if there's anything different in it from the 2000-only version, or the 2004+ versions.

I do know when I had the spark-plug recall done, the dealership gave me little stickers with the new part number of torque spec, so in that sense things do get updated.

xviper

Good question. Are we talking about "owner's" or "service" manual here? Owner's manuals don't get updated for any given year of car. Only recalls and TSBs will give the owner a hint as to any updates available.
Service manuals, of course, change to include another model year each time, but I don't think many owner's will buy a new one every year unless they buy a new model year car.

SpitfireS

It would be nice to supply a new car with every new service manual you buy, wouldn't it?
My service manaul has a place for the dealer to print his "ID" and milage to show service history so that would be lost with a new service manual.

I was talking about owners manual.
My car was bought at a official Honda dealership but no stickers were put in my owners manual (or service manual) about sparkplugs. Or any other part.
I learned about the sparkplugs inhere and from the mechanic at the dealer.

Thanks for taking the time to reply.
Feel free to think of this answer as a "bump", you would be right

tino73

If you read the owner's manual about what they suggest for storing your car and compare what most people on the board say, there are a lot of differences. For example, on page 202 of MY 01 manual, it states to "run the engine for a while periodically (preferably once a month)". This has been discussed at length before and most people on the board agree that doing this is worse for your engine.

xviper

This is one of those peculiarities in the manual. (Not unlike how they tell you shut the engine off before operating the soft top. This one was likely written by their lawyers.)

As for the "periodic" engine run, I think there is some other hidden agenda that, for reasons of general owner sampling, they put that in. Honda knows that there will be more than average numbers of S2000s not being driven over the cold, winter months. They also know that ECUs don't like low and diminishing voltage going to the ECU. I believe they tell owners who store their vehicles to do a periodic run because they want to ensure the battery is kept up for fear of having to replace a lot of ECUs. Rather than telling owners that they should go out and spend money on a smart charger and use it, they tell you run the engine every few weeks. I don't believe this is to keep the engine healthy. It's to keep the ECU happy.

FIY ........................... Honda motorcycles that come fuel injected have a little ECU. In those owner's manual, it will state to use a small charger whenever the bike is not used for more than 2 weeks at a time. They do NOT say to run the engine. Of course, almost all motorcycle owned in the snow belt will be stored during the winter.