I just bought the Chilton manual for the 96-00 Honda Civic, and I was disappointed at how little actual information it contains,
*even compared to older Chilton manuals*. Worse, they seem to have merged with Haynes, and the old Haynes manuals were actually somewhat useful.I'm not quite convinced that I need to spend $100 for a real shop manual, though, because I'm not likely to attempt any "real" repairs. I mostly just used the wiring diagrams and the interior body panel diagrams (the latter are now so generic that they're almost useless).
The old Haynes manuals served a real need, which they are no longer serving. If they're trying to save money, they'd be better off to sell them on CD (so you can print out the relevant pages), rather than skimping on the research and then spending all that money on dead trees, when there's no useful information inside.