Operation CHARM: Car repair manuals for everyone

manufacturers have all switched to online-only, subscription shop manuals that don't lend themselves to easy archiving to PDF.

I know the mitchell and alldata discs on the high seas stops around then also.

Yeah, it's also missing a lot of the information for the 2004 325xit sports wagon. No info on the rear hatch wipers, glass, etc.

We’re so lucky to have realoem. I was kind of shocked to find no equivalent for my late model GM vehicle.

This is how I learned to troubleshoot certain issues. The Chilton manual had a pretty good diagnosis section.

Arguably, many of the things you’ll need to work on for newer vehicles are likely far outside the casual mechanic’s expertise and require a lot of bespoke and expensive equipment to service.

Everything else, like oil, brakes or fluid changes are basically the same as any other car. I understand that this kind of runs afoul of the spirit of this post, but there’s a reason many engines are simply replaced when they encounter some kind of major malfunction.

Torque specs you generally do get a feel for. It's basically related to bolt size. I mean, generally. Use torque specs inside the engine. Outside the engine go by feel

I’ve always been curious about how many different manuals there seem to be for every car. I know that the manufacturers create one for dealers and that there are/were companies that tear cars down to make their own, but it feels like when I’ve needed to go find instructions for things there’s a staggering variety of manuals of varying levels of helpfulness.

Even when I manage to find what I think is an FSM it seems a little hard to follow what’s really going on in a given section without reading the section for every other assembly involved.

They can be found on the scionlife forums, or at least used to be. I bet if you ask around you’ll find them.

(Aside, it’s interesting that car people seem to be one of the groups that still use old fashioned BBS-style web forums.)

If your public library offers access to a repair manual database (many do), you can probably find it on there for free.

I just checked and both Auto Repair Source and Chilton have manuals for that car in their database.

As a professional diesel mechanic by trade, i can say this is a similar practice shops pay through-the-nose for with paid online catalogue services. this makes shadetree work on Teslas a treat. I spent a summer during covid doing work on Model S suspensions in a spare bay.

Im also chuffed to see the "pictures" in the service catalogue are just as pathetic as the ones some manufacturers include in the paid service portals. Freightliner and Mac manuals are all pristine...theres clearly an artist on salary who gets paid very very well for his craft. Companies that rhyme with Bilbo however include photos that look like they were taken with a gameboy color camera on a stormy night.

...because they gatekeep everyone via parts, instead.

Tesla is one of very, very few companies for which its parts aren't available via the OEMs; parts made for Teslas can only be had via Tesla. If some part in your VW goes bad or breaks or wears, you often have up to three options: from VW via dealers, via the OEM that made the part for VW, via parts distributors - or via non-OEMs that have made a compatible part. VW (and others) often source from multiple OEMs or switch OEMs, so you sometimes have multiple OEM supplier options.

With Tesla? Only via them. For every fucking part on the car save stuff like brake pads and rotors.

You have to give them a VIN number to buy a part, and if the VIN belongs to a car Tesla has decided isn't roadworthy anymore, they won't go any further.

Want to put a small block chevy V8 into your Yugo? The guy at the GM dealer part counter will happily sell you one as long as you've got the money. Discovered that a Ford temperature sensor is a more reliable replacement for the one in your Jeep? The parts counter staff won't even blink when they sell you one.

The only time you'll get asked for a VIN is if the part you're asking for has varied with production, and certain VIN ranges might require a specific part for compatibility.

Haynes has a classic print error on the distributor leads for my car. Its like 4 1 3 2 instead of 2 3 1 4 (its right they just got the orientation backwards) which leads to many a forum thread.

They have/had huge collections of physical manuals too. That brings back memories around the turn of the century when I was in the "bookz" scene, going to the libraries with others and maxing out our library cards to bring home dozens of them for "scanparties". There were huge torrents of car manuals created as a result, and I suspect at least some of our efforts have been preserved in the "pirate libraries" today.

Yeah, was about to comment that. I looked for Suzuki Swift, but nada.

Released as in publicly available, yes. Not free though: https://www.thehenryford.org/collections-and-research/digita...

You mean rockauto.com and I agree it’s a great source for parts

Labor times are for new cars at flat rate dealerships, a lot of them are not realistic. Dealers make a pile of money off brake jobs, shocks, and other "gravy" repairs where it takes less time than the book says. They also lose time on the hard stuff that nobody in the place does on a routine basis like wire harness repairs. The timing also expects the mechanic to have the right tools all at hand, the right parts all ready to go, and the car is expected to be new, clean, and rust free. Your mileage may vary.