Forum Etiquette and the Owner’s Manual

Greetings friends.

Thank you everyone for making this forum the lively and informative community that it is.

I have been a member of several such forums in the past. Forum membership can follow a predictable pattern. New forum members tend to be especially hungry for information and their early association with the board is the time they learn the most. At least that’s the case with me and I always feel a sense of gratitude to those members who have been so generous with their knowledge, patience, and enthusiasm. And I feel a desire to repay that generosity. The way that the new guy, who is perhaps less knowledgeable, can contribute is to answer “the easy ones” - those simple questions that come up with mind-numbing frequency, that could be answered in two seconds with a search. That’s the new guy’s way of doing his part. At some point in the course of forum membership, one evolves beyond new guy status, having acquired enough understanding to answer more demanding questions. At that point the now-more-experienced member might begin to concern himself less with the mundane repetitive questions.

In the past couple of days I have answered forum questions by simply looking in the owner’s manual. I don’t mind performing that service, because as the new guy it’s my turn. But after almost a year and a half and 1000 posts, as I evolve beyond new guy status, and in the spirit of teaching a man to fish, I would offer the following.

The two owners manuals for the 4Runner - the Owner’s Manual proper and the Navigation and Multimedia manual - are dauntingly ponderous and poorly indexed tomes. But if one downloads the pdf versions of the manuals to a computer or mobile device, and views them with a pdf viewer that facilitates a keyword search, information that might have taken minutes to find in the printed manual can be had in seconds. And there's the added convenience of being able to screenshot and upload portions of the manual. So, to the new guys (and everyone, really) don’t deny yourself the magic and power of the pdf and the keyword search.

Well, that’s really all I had to say. Thanks for listening.

 

Excellent suggestion Captain. I downloaded the pdf version of those manuals before I even took possession of my 4Runner. I don't think I have ever taken the actual owner's manuals out of the glovebox in the 4+ months I have owned my 4Runner - but I have referenced the pdf versions countless times.

 

This is a timely reminder. I was reading the manuals on my iPad but haven't looked at them in a while. I need to get back into them so I am properly informed when I finally find "my" 4Runner.

Being "old school" I prefer reading paper manuals, but you can't beat the electronic versions when searching for specific info.

 

I had a two month wait between the time I ordered my 4Runner and delivery. I had a month to read up before I had the truck.

 

Wait... so I have to download the manual AND search for the information myself? Sheeesh.



Kidding of course. I've done this and it's a good suggestion.

 

Aye aye, Captain, great suggestions.

Might this also be a back door suggestion for those who no longer consider themselves the 'new guy' to stop busting new guy's chops and demanding that they turn in documented evidence of several weeks' worth of online searches prior to posting their first official query, perhaps?

 

I was trying to be subtle. I also wanted to encourage up-and-coming new guys to take on the mantle.

 

I have done none of this! I am just blindly relying on this Toyota 4R to be as good as everyone says it is. In 25 months and 38,800 miles I have done the required oil changes and tire rotations.

 

I'm up to page 490 in the Owner's Manual. The Navigation and Multimedia System Owner's Manual are up next.

One thing I find frustrating so far is the large proportion of caveats for the driver assist functions. It seems like almost half the text is about conditions where systems may not operate as expected, and the caveats are redundant because they refer to common root causes (rain, snow or mud on a camera or an RF sensor, the vehicle's path isn't flat and straight, the scene is too complicated or lacks sufficient contrast between the elements). They could have used one table and made many references to it instead of repeating pages and pages of the same material for each function affected by the same root cause.

 

Owners manual pdf will be on my phone...and my laptop.

 

That depends on the post in my opinion. Forum etiquette should go both ways. Most of the time I see new guys say "here's what I want to do" or "here's my question" followed up with "I've looked at posts and I think this is the way to go. What do you guys think?"

That kind of post is great and shows the guy is at least trying to learn on his own and is looking for more input. What is irritating are the brand new guys who want to be spoon fed all the answers without putting in a single minute of effort. Or asking questions that have literally dozens, if not hundreds, of posts addressing that very issue. To me, that's a no-no and a breach of forum etiquette.

 

I share your frustration my brother. I have to be real bored to read a post on wheels and tires. Or lighting. Or wiring Raptor lights. But you never know - sometimes some juicy tidbits will pop up in one of those repetitive posts.

 

Don't forget the search button and google helps too.

 

Hmm. Sounds like you could benefit from downloading the pdf of the Maintenance Schedule. And at the risk of luring Gamma Ray into the conversation, you may want to lube your prop shafts.

 

Some of the forums I'm on have near zero tolerance for laziness. Jetskis, trucks, home improvement, guns - new guys will generally get one, maybe two, gentle reminders to search prior posts and learn from them first, then come back with questions. After that it gets brutal.

 

I’ve seen it. Intolerance of laziness is understandable. But personal insults are bad news. I’ve seen forums die because of it. The anchor members - the guys who are knowledgeable and generous - get put off by the sniping and then leave. And then it’s all sniping. Pirate 4x4 went through a period about 10 years ago where it was basically useless because a cadre of nice guys had left. It took years for it to recover (at least to the extent that it has).

 

And for the new and old guys alike: sometimes the search function in a forum is crappy. You can always use Google like this:

"site:www.4runners.com [search term]"

So if I wanted to search this site for the term "raptor" I'd go to Google and type this: site:www.4runners.com raptor

The above wording will only search the domain after the word "site:" and only for the term at the end. It's really the best way to do it.

 

Agreed. Jackass.

 

It's funny, but I use the same phrase in Google searching, but was told that it should be like this:

driver's side grab handle site:4runners.com/

per this thread, which I saved as 'watched':

https://www.4runners.com/threads/sh...s-it-could-be-dangerous-to-your-health.14060/

 

Who is this Manuel everyone’s talking about? And how does he feel about being downloaded all the time?

 

Where is the manual to download this manual every one says has the answers to 4Runner life?

 

Ah. A Pirate 4x4 member.

https://www.toyota.com/owners/resources/warranty-owners-manuals

 

A thread like this should be stickied.
Even then, I'm not sure how much it will help. Besides not searching, the newbies doesn't seem to be reading the threads at all. There were days where multiple new threads on the same topic can be seen on the first page. ("Which remote start?", "which lift,wheels?", "how long was your wait...?", "wheel vibration"...)

Soe threads are clear that the OP is lazy and wants everyone else to do the work for them.
Boggles my mind that they can spend time signing up for a forum and make a new thread but cannot search.
A quick Google search will yield answers from both forums. No sign up necessary to read.
Also, selecting "search titles only" may filter out a lot of unnecessary results.

 

And then there’s the “one and done” poster who asks a question, gets a dozen replies, and is never acknowledges them or utters a word of thanks.

 

Another etiquette issue is replying without answering the question.

For example: OP asks “How do I do X?” And the the replies start coming in.

“No no. You don’t want to do X.”
“Don’t do X. Do Y.”
“Do a search.”
“They did X better on the Tacoma.”
“Only an idiot would do X.”
“My buddy did X and then [enter catastrophe here].”
​

— and finally on the second page someone will say —

“Here’s how you do X.”​

I try to make a point of “liking” posts that actually answer the question.

 

I love boobies

 

Good point. Over on the Tacoma site a guy maintained 1 thread for "Tips and Tricks" you could search easily.

 

I've seen a bunch of people come and go here. This place is generally very friendly, but occasionally we get some rude members. They usually don't last very long, though.

 

The search feature can work decent if you get familiar with it. But, I agree with @glwood54 about googling the question followed by "4runners.com".

 

hear hear for rtfm.

i get why some don’t bother rtfm. todays owners manuals are awful nebulous things. doesn’t even make for good bathroom reading like old manuals.

soft copies of manuals make life real easy especially repair manuals through TIS or Helm. no more oil smeared fingerprint pages. just an oil smeared fingerprint ipad now these days.