GM issues recalls for missing manuals you probably won’t read anyway – Jalopnik

General Motors has recalled certain 2026 Chevy Silverado trucks and Cadillac Vistiq SUVs for one of the most innocent reasons: forgetting to include the owner’s manual. You’re probably not going to read it, but manufacturers are legally required to provide one, and two rather separate mistakes at the factories have resulted in around 3,500 vehicles not getting them, according to Carscopes. This is clearly not a safety issue. The recalls are only intended to bring the affected vehicles into compliance with the law.

In the case of Chevy, documentation is missing for 169 copies of the Silverado 1500, 3,211 of the 2500 HD and 28 of the 3500 HD. NHTSA. For whatever reason, the books never made it into the factory glove box and the trucks were sold without them. The solution is simple: just go to your dealer and pick them up. While she normally costs $50the dealer will provide them to you free of charge since they should have come with the truck in the first place. Not that you’ll ever read them, except maybe one day to find out where that blown fuse is. In the unlikely event that you need to consult the manual before you have a printed manual, Chevy has them available online. You can even create your own manual by printing the PDF file, but that’s not necessary as Chevy will provide you with an actual manual.

As with most software problems, the solution is to restart the infotainment system, which will prompt it to download the manual again. You can do this manually by pressing and holding the End Call/Mute button for 15 seconds. The system also automatically restarts after 24 hours of total driving time, so many Vistiqs have already been repaired without the owner ever knowing there was a problem. However, GM decided to recall all potentially affected vehicles to ensure their manuals were installed.

While these manuals won’t teach you how to drive a manual transmission (even though some do), it’s good to have this information available. I don’t recommend reading them cover to cover unless you want to fall asleep, but they are a great reference, and technical writers have spent countless hours making them complete, accurate, and concise (source: me, a former technical writer). They can also give you information about features you may not have been aware of. The first year I owned it I didn’t even know about the auto hold feature on my Ford Transit camper until I came across it in the manual while looking for something else. Now I use it when I drive in traffic. So follow the abbreviation RTFM, which means ‘Read the Friendly Guide’, because F can’t possibly stand for anything else.