YOU might be surprised to hear that the manual for a rather popular car takes longer to read cover-to-cover than some of the Harry Potter books and most of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

A study by car sales firm, Bristol Street Motors, revealed the Audi A3's car handbook is a whopping 167,699 words long.

That would take roughly 11 hours and 45 minutes to read in total.

You could finish The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (by J.R.R. Tolkien) in that time and still have 49 minutes to spare.

Or, if you could manage an extra five minutes, you'd be able to complete J.K. Rowlings sixth book in the Harry Potter series - the Half-Blood Prince - which comes in at a hefty 168,923 words.

The Goblet of Fire (190,637 words), the Deathly Hallows (198,227) and the Order of the Phoenix (257,045) are way over that mark though, as is J.R.R Tolkien's first in his series, The Fellowship of the Ring (187,790).

But if vampires are more your thing, then the Volkswagen Golf's car manual comes closest to replicating the length of Twilight (by Stephenie Meyer).

The Golf is seventh on the list of 30 cars that were part of the study, with a handbook consisting of 114,606 words, which falls just 4,369 short of the first in Meyer's series - a long essay's length at university.

It would take around eight hours and two minutes to read the entirety of the Golf's manual and 18 minutes more to finish Twilight.

Dropping to five-figures reveals that the Hyundai i10 and BMW 3 Series's handbooks are not too dissimilar from three well-known tales which span right across the spectrum of history, in terms of when they were published.

The BMW's car manual ( 92,837 words) is 1,320 words short of, and six minutes less reading than, the Hyundai's handbook (94,157), which in turn is just 1,199 words fewer than J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit (95,356).

The Hunger Games (by Suzanne Collins), at 99,750 words, and To Kill a Mockingbird (by Harper Lee), at 100,388, follow this.

Both have a reading time either side of seven hours.

Of course, we'd argue The Hunger Games has many more gripping moments than both the previously mentioned manuals.

But if tyre pressures and warning light explanations are your thing, then who are we to judge?

Bristol Street Motors looked at 30 of the UK's most popular cars and counted every single word of their individual manuals for the study.

The top ten cars all have staggeringly long manuals, especially when compared to the car at the bottom of the list, the Vauxhall Zafira, which has a modest manual of just 37,147 words or two hours and 36 hours of reading.

The firm also surveyed 350 people and found 60 per cent of motorists don’t bother reading their car handbook before driving their vehicle for the first time.

Only 29 per cent read their full car handbook and just 37 per cent would choose to consult their handbook first if they had issues with their car, with the majority preferring to get their information from YouTube, the internet, friends and family.

Normally, a person uses around eight cars during their lifetime, and the average time taken to read a car handbook in this dataset is 6 hours 17 minutes.

This means you’ll spend two days, two hours and 19 minutes reading car handbooks in your lifetime (if you can be bothered).

The top ten (in descending order) is as follows:

  • Audi A3 - 167,699 words, 11 hours and 45 mins reading time
  • Seat Ibiza - 154,657, 10 hours and 50 mins
  • Mercedes C-Class - 152,875, 10 hours and 42 mins
  • Mercedes A-Class - 143,706, 10 hours and four mins
  • Kia Sportage - 133,531, nine hours and 21 mins
  • Ford Focus - 127,321, eight hours and 55 mins
  • Volkswagen Golf - 114,606, eight hours and two mins
  • Honda Civic - 110,484, seven hours and 44 mins
  • Audi A4 - 109,934, seven hours and 42 mins
  • Nissan Juke - 108,853, seven hours and 37 mins