AAAANNNNNNNDDDDD you are the reason why they put labels on everything.

Those lights should not of been that hard to figure out.. As the car goes faster and the engine noise goes louder, the lights start multiplying. you let off the gas they go away, you shift they go away, you keep your foot in it and don't shift they stay there and the car falls on it's face... Or it could mean you need gas??? I have no clue.

Where in the rules does it say we have to help people with their questions? DO we have to answer questions about how to open the doors cause their is no handle or how to get out cause there is no handle?? Some things in life are self explanatory with a little thought process and well tinkering with them.

You are of course correct. No one who doesn't feel like answering a question because they find it to be a stupid question is required to answer it. The other side of the coin is that the OP, whether or not we think the answer is self-evident, asked because he didn't know. Sometimes it's all in the tone of the reply.

Some people just like thorough explanations, and there's nothing wrong with that. Manuals should document all features for those who want to consult them, even if 98% feel like they can figure out things for themselves.

I do have to agree the C7 manual is poor in comparison to other manufacturer manuals I've consulted over the years. It's very dumbed down.

There's nothing in the "rules" that says you need to help people. You just have to ask yourself, do you want to be pleasant and polite, or do you want to be a dick? If you feel inclined to be the latter, you're better off not posting.

Off topic slightly, but what would be really useful is turn lights in the HUD! The top of my steering wheel is directly in line with the ones in the dash so they are not visible without moving my head down.

I often think this is a safe (and really great and useful) environment for what may seem like silly questions to some - and maybe I too am missing something obvious - if so please don't shoot! :hide: :leaving:

It's already 398 pages long. 1098 still probably won't get everything.

Don't let technology make you angry. After all, it's why your C7 destroys cars that came from the anolog era. The shift lights are a wonderful tool on the track! And if you live at redline, it does lot take long to figure it out.

I can do both... Does that make me ambidextrous? :cool:

After this thread I paid attention to them and they are rather intuitive. As revs build you'll see a green light on each side of the HUD, then two green lights on either side, keep revving it goes to yellow lights on each side closer together and near the red line I suppose they move slightly further inboard and turn red in color.

But anybody defending GM for not putting a picture of this with a paragraph similar to what I just typed above in the owner's manual is as idiotic as the GM suits and probably should fax them a resume. Don't worry, I'm confident that if any company will still accept incoming faxes, it's GM. If you want to send one to my company you'll have to figure out how to scan the document and send it electronically.

Leaving significant portions of the car's operation not covered in the consumer documentation that comes with something as complex and potentially dangerous as a car blows my mind, maybe that's why all the other car companies have documentation that doesn't suck. It's like every time I go to the Corvette owner's manual(s) I find that they're useless.

Very surprising that a company can design such great products and produce such awful documentation. They should clean house in that division of GM. That probably means there are other cars in their lineup with lame documentation. That really wouldn't be so hard or expensive to remedy.

I guess this is a pet peeve of mine because our work goes into documents that explain things and it's really not that hard to get it right, you just have to give a flying fark and be thorough.

Yep, see mine all the time in HUD and I mostly have my M7 Grand Sport sent in Touring.

One other observation, it's not just as I approach the 6600 redline, if the car isn't fully warm and the yellow bar shows, for example, 5000 max suggested rpm they come on sooner as you get to even ~3500 rpm. When I accelerate prior to it being fully up to temp I always short shift but will occasionally see the shift lights.

Does your iPhone come with a manual, or any phone for that matter?

No, because it's intuitive. Sorry guys, Silicon Valley ruined the world in this regard GM and other OEM's are just copying them because lets face it, tech is successful and the "darling" of Wall Street.

Chrysler doesn't even give you a manual anymore (it's digital now).

It would have been simple to say there are 5 lights (or whatever) as the revs increase the lights will come on at the end toward the middle. When they reach the middle you need to upshift. It would then have been appropriate to say that waiting that long is too long and you should shift at the last pair of lights BEFORE it has all of the lights lit.

You know, an answer to the question and be done with it. Telling the OP that he is too stupid to walk and chew gum is really being a dick.

A simple explanation would have been nice.

I just put it in D and let the computer shift! :D Less chance of screwing it up! :D


Elmer

One cannot become smarter unless one realizes they are dumb.

This is the Internet, people are usually jerks. This thread, is pretty typical, don't know why people think anyone has been mean.

A spade is a spade.

:iagree:Let the computer determine when to shift. You will find it really is pretty good at doing its job.:cheers:

If you are used to good manuals from companies like Tektronix or Agilent Technologies (originally the T&M division of HP which was the heart of the "real" HP) then the shortcomings of GM manuals for a car like the Corvette are obvious. The C7 has a lot of features not found on some of the lower line cars so providing the same generic documentation doesn't work well. GM is a manufacturing AND marketing company and right now they aren't doing a good job of either. Part of the marketing side is customer satisfaction and providing an owner's manual suitable for the target market is a key part of avoiding customer dissatisfaction.

What is intuitive to one person obviously was not clear to several other owners and the shift lights certainly are not the only instance. Other examples include the eLSD information screen, the statement in the manual that with the A6 and A8 that V4 mode will occur in the eco driver mode setting even when the transmission is set to manual (several owners have tested this and found it does not enter V4 mode with the A8 set to manual even in eco mode), and numerous questions about how to navigate the various screen modes with the associated options of linking/unlinking parameters to driver mode.

The standard boiler plate manual isn't sufficient for many of the Corvette owners and GM can and has done better. My 2006 GMC Sierra 2500HD came with a nice supplement covering the diesel engine and Allison transmission to fully explain the operational features and quirks of these powertrain components and an additional brochure providing information on "living with your Allison automatic".

So back to the lights :) All the manual really needed was a short paragraph explaining the operation of the lights and maybe a hint at which lighting point you might want to hit the paddle for the perfect shift. This in itself would have blunted some of the criticism over the lag between paddle activation and the resultant shift.

Shift Lights
 

I haven't read everyone's posts, but from watching my heads up display when I am in manual mode and accelerating hard, I see two green lights pop up at a certain rpm, then inside the green lights, orange lights come on, green goes away, then as the rpms climb further the orange go out and are replaced by red lights. At that point I think I am on the verge of motor shut off unless I shift immediately (or somewhere in that range). I know I see this when I am in manual mode and Sport mode and probably in touring and track, but need to be in the manual mode of the automatic transmission. Just my experience from what I remember. I actually is kind of neat and easier to follow than keeping an eye on the tach. :D:thumbs:

You obviously don't know how things work in a large corporation. Idiot suits don't make those decisions. It is the low level technical writers who make write the manuals and copy sections from one car to another because they are close enough. The technical writers get their info from the design engineers who are usually loath to spend time describing things or digging up engineering info for the writers so the writers get a lot of misjointed stuff that doesn't tell everything about the car and they run with it. This happens on all technically involved products no matter which company makes them. The larger the company the less likely the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th or 6th level managers even know what is going on down in the trenches. They look at schedules and cost and demand to know why things aren't going according to schedule or costs are getting out of line. If an engineer or finance person finally works their way to a management position it is highly likely they aren't able to resolve the technical issues that are outside of their experience and that is why all of this stuff is done at a low level.

The big news about the VW Diesel scandal isn't that it happened but that it actually involved some high level people. Usually that kind of stuff doesn't reach the first line manager unless some other low level person or another group involved with that part of the product makes noise about it.

Bill

It could be worse. GM could go to the J B Hunt system. At a set rpm a voice screams out " Shift Stupid !" :rofl: