Haynes manual instructions

too true!

While they are not the best choice, they are not quite that bad.

---------------- Alex

Actually yes they are. They are filled with so much incorrect, incomplete information that your money is better spent paying a couple bucks more for the factory service manual.

I'd rather not have a manual than a haynes or a chiltons...

The perfect Holiday gift for someone special! ;->

"Bill 2" sprach im news:pIwkd.176647$ snipped-for-privacy@ursa-nb00s0.nbnet.nb.ca:

Unless you can find that factory service manual on eBay, it will cost quite a bit more than a "couple of bucks".

Haynes for our '91 Integra, $20. Factory service manual, new, $200.

Haynes for our '99 Tercel, $20. Factory, new, $400.

I bit the bullet and bought the factory ones. The Honda manual is fabulously written and, so far, extremely precise. Well worth every penny paid for it.

The Toyota one is riddled with errors and omissions, almost as bad as the Haynes. Very disappointing. When I need something important, I must get the correct information from

"TeGGer®" sprach im news:Xns959E1DEFED00Fteggeratistop@207.14.113.17:

And by the way, I've got a nearly complete set of factory 1970 Ford Car Shop Manuals acquired new when my Dad bought his '70 Custom 500. The only one missing is "Volume 4, Body".

Anybody got Volume 4 for sale? eBay has only one "complete set".

A *couple* of bucks?

Obviously you have not priced any factory service manuals lately...

||>> >This should be included with every Haynes manual sold: ||>> >

||>> While they are not the best choice, they are not quite that bad. ||>> ---------------- ||>> Alex ||> ||> Actually yes they are. They are filled with so much incorrect, incomplete ||> information that your money is better spent paying a couple bucks more for ||> the factory service manual. || ||I'd rather not have a manual than a haynes or a chiltons...

You may get your wish. Many of the manufacturers no longer offer a manual to the owner. If they do, it may be a CD for $100 or more

Haynes fills a need for reasonably-priced repair information specific to your car. It is correct far more than it is wrong. I have a number of Haynes manuals and have yet to find a procedure incorrectly documented. It is true that sometimes there is not enough info to answer the questions that come up, but for the money I'll accept that.

I obtain a Haynes manual for every vehicle I acquire. If I can also get a FSM, I will, but that's a backup. The Haynes gets the grease smudges. Texas Parts Guy

I bought the one for my 99 Mazda for $50, but I understand undiscounted retail is $100. $400 for Toyota I can believe, too.

snipped-for-privacy@grace.speakeasy.net (Matthew Russotto) sprach im news: snipped-for-privacy@speakeasy.net:

Does that $50 one contain all the EWDs?

Toyota's $400 is Canadian dollars (about $330 US) and covers both books.

I assume EWDs = wiring diagrams? Yes, it has them, though reduced in size. I believe there's a larger version of the manual that the dealers have, I don't know how much that one costs.

In a previous posting, "Bill 2" had the audacity to say:

:Actually yes they are. They are filled with so much incorrect, incomplete :information that your money is better spent paying a couple bucks more for :the factory service manual.

I was actually dumb enough to buy a Haynes manual once, so I actually agree with you and Dan, except for the fact that it's not a "couple" of bucks more for the factory service manual. It's more like $100 more.

FWIW, Nissan (/Infiniti) has a service where you pay $20 and get 24 hours of access to their entire techpubs library. You then download all the .PDFs you're interested in, and save 'em to CD-ROM. I got my FX' service manual this way, ~40-odd .PDFs spread out over ~200MB.

I even printed all gazillion pages in 4-up, duplex (i.e., 8 pages/ sheet) mode- while you can't really do any work in that format (when I needed to check on something, I just printed the appropriate pages normally), it's good as a guide as to where to look.

But if you buy the CD, it's $200.

-Kenny

There's a huge variation, depending on which model car the Haynes manual is for. Different authors, I guess.

For example, the '87 tercel manual is excellent. But the 3-series BMW manual is crap.

-Ted

The Haynes manual for my 1997 Nissan left out the torque specs for my brakes and front suspension, and they kept referring to a "torque member" but never explained what it was. It said that the fuel filter was in the rear, but it was actually in the engine compartment (and it wasn't a matter of the car having two fuel filters). The body information was for a different model (one illustration was for an early 1970s vehicle and even said "Datsun"), and the wiring diagram was labelled "typical," which is a euphemism for "completely different from your car." And when it came to information about the computer codes and fuel/emissions, the Haynes excluded almost everything, and the diagnostic charts for drivability problems seemed to be 100% generic. For example for rough idle they gave the usual hints, like spark, lean mixture, and wrong idle speed, but they mentioned nothing at all about the idle speed regulator.

Factor in the money you didn't waste buying wrong parts, or damaging parts following Haynes instructions, lost time following wrong procedures, repairing the hole in the wall from when you were so pissed off at the book you punched a hole in it, etc.

Not typical, but I just did a quick check on Ebay for the FSM for my car and it was $5 "Buy it now" + $5 shipping. The Haynes manual bidding started at $15.

New I probably bought the manual for $100-$150, and I can see when the FSM is $400 people look at other options, but I still think Haynes and Chilton's are poor options.

And worth every penny.

Except, after I had learned my lesson years earlier on aftermarket manuals, a few months after I bought my daughter a used car, the very first opportunity that came up for diagnosis and repair of an electrical problem, in a weak moment, I went down the street and sprung for a whole $13 for a Haynes manual. Due to a visibly hidden fuse that was not shown in the "TYPICAL" schematics of the Haynes, I ended up replacing a perfectly good factory alternator when all that was wrong was that the in-line fuse that the manual did not show had mechanically fractured. Aftermarket alt. cost $260, plus I now had an inferior aftermarket alt. in place of the factory one. FSM would have cost around $90. Tell me: Did I save any money? You do the math (13 + 260 vs. 90 + 5).

BTW, I found out after the fact that, without exception, every vehicle of the span of years and model variation covered by that Haynes manual came from the factory with that fuse, and, after purchasing the FSM the next day, verified that that fuse was clearly shown in the schematics, yet the Haynes schematic was labeled "TYPICAL".

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my adddress with the letter 'x')