How Often Do You Utilize Car Repair Manuals?

[CarKing]

How often do you Utilize car repair manuals?
I find it exciting to get my hands on a tray of tools and fix things myself but there is always a shortcoming when things get too technical.
First time I tried using a hard copy repair manual I was turned off by all the text, but with digital versions everywhere it cant be that bad.
I have had some advice from do it yourselfers and professional mechanics and they all agree that it could save me some time and money, even not actively then maybe for the long term. How often do you do preventive maintenance with manuals, if so how functional is it for you?

[CarKing]

Pericoloso said:

I much prefer using a book manual.

Watching a You tube video with my head stuffed under the wheelarch isn't practical.

I guess you could listen to audio if you know the parts, but hard copy is probably the faster, safer option

[CarKing]

PositronicRay said:

I used to, when little alternative.

There's not one published for my current car, so I've a DVD ripped from the manufactures system, it assumes your factory trained though.


You tube, owners club forums are the way forward for most stuff. I even have an old flaptop just for garage use.

Which car is that...there are some quality websites that have pretty much repair manuals for all the basic models in the market. The DVD could be too technical for the average car owner.

[CarKing]

vsonix said:

I have a Haynes manual for E36 but I rarely if ever use it, it's more for memorabilia purposes. It's from relatively early in the model cycle so there's a fair bit of stuff relevant to late-model cars that's missing. And it's usually much quicker to look for how-tos on forums, especially now I found the browser extension that makes Photobucket work properly again!

Have you tried checking the updated versions on repair manual websites, BMW is an important car and you should have an easy time finding it should you need an alternative in the future.

[CarKing]

colin_p said:

It is a time honoured tradition for any self respecting petrol head to always read a car manual whilst sat on the toilet.

If you are really dedicated to the art, often when it comes to actually doing some work on your car, you don't need the manual at all except maybe to look up torque wrench settings. But legend has it that some have even memorised them as well and can reel them off like the times tables.

That was the motivation when trying out my car's first manual, that I would have finger tip knowledge on some skills I dared not venture.

[CarKing]

PositronicRay said:

Merc SL

I guess you will have better luck from the Emanualonline website. Just search for Merc and good luck.