Car Repair Books Aren't What They Used To Be

[Jim Koepke]

Many years ago my work included trouble shooting a computer control board. Some times my trouble shooting was listening to my radio. Most of the time my radio was tuned to an AM news station. There were particular cases where the problem would produce various types of static on the radio. To some, being able to plug in the board, power up and identify the problem quickly made me seem like some kind of a wizard. When trying to explain the different noises different problems would make on the radio, some of the others looked at me like I was a bit strange.

Fast forward 35 years…

Last Saturday my 21 year old truck decided the windshield washers weren't going to work when we hopped in to go to the farmers market. Fortunately we didn't have to contend with any rain. The windshield was washed by hand before we left.

This week rain is in the forcast so as much as it is off my want to do list it had to be addressed. Hoping for an easy fix the fuse was checked. Darn, it was fine. Back in the days of working on VWs the shafts through the body would sometimes rust up and seize. Wiggle the blade on the driver side, the one on the passenger side wiggles with it, darn again.

Sometimes things just get stuck, so I went to try to wiggle with the power on, key in run position, motor not running. Of course the seat belt buzzer and door open buzzer are blaring away. Noticed a change in tone when the wipers were turned on. To me that indicated the motor was draining current, but not turning. Bought a new motor, put it in today and now all that is left to do is the wiper blades need a little clean up and reinstallation. In the old days the motors could be taken apart and repaired. This one didn't look like it was going to go along with that plan.

My biggest gripe is the Chilton manual that was bought back when I had a different truck of the same make is close to useless. It tells about the three bolts that hold the motor in place, but it doesn't tell about the panel that needs to be removed to get access to those three bolts. It also doesn't tell about the disassembly of the drive arm that needs to be done before the motor can be wiggled out of its mounting. Nor does it tell the procedure or the necessity of removing the wiper arms before being able to remove the plastic cover over the area where the motor is hidden.

The pictures are terrible.

Maybe next time I need a car manual I will try some other publisher. There are only a few of whom I know. Looks like a lot of stuff is online

Now that my truck is old enough to drink, maybe I should go have one with it.

jtk

[Chuck Wintle]

a lot of repairs are on you tube now..the days of the manual for the home mechanic may be past. cars are so complicated that most stuff is beyond the backyard mechanic. of course the factory shop manual is available for more cost.

[Mike Lassiter]

look for factory CD or DVD's on ebay. I got over a dozen for Ford several years ago that were Ford factory repair manuals covering several years on specific cars and trucks on each disk. Not long ago got one for our Town & County van as well, but it is all PDF files that you have to sort through to find what you want. The Ford stuff actually installed a program that you could got through and drill down to what you wanted in each section like engine, body, electrical, brakes and so on. The typical book is a help but far from getting into much detail. I need to figure on about the heater/ac control dash lights on our van. Manual was worthless. But able to find information online easy.

[Jason Roehl]

What kind of truck?

I actually find newer vehicles EASIER to work on in most regards. For one, the computer will often tell you exactly what the problem is, if you know how to talk to it. Sure, there is often more "stuff" crammed into the engine bay, but most of the time, a few screws here and there to remove a few items, and you're good to go (often I've found that the air intake and filter box are quick to remove and really open things up).

And that's if you even ever have to work on them. Forty years ago, cars were doing well to get to 50,000 miles, and to do that required regular tune-ups that included fiddling with a temperamental carburetor. I've had several vehicles now that went well over 100,000 miles with no major repairs (a relay or a sensor might have gone bad--but the computer told me), and definitely no adjustments nor more than a single tune-up or so along the way.

[Jim Koepke]

What kind of truck?

I actually find newer vehicles EASIER to work on in most regards.

It is a Dodge Ram 1500.

The simplest vehicles in my life were the old VWs of my youth. They were simple to work on, but needed to be worked on too often. My only solo engine rebuild was for my 1957 VW Transporter. Before it was rear ended and had a new muffler installed the engine was silent running. I took the time to balance the rods and pistons to less than a half a gram. It was a sweet bucket of rust. The funniest memory is driving through a puddle and the guy sitting on the passenger side shocked when his feet got wet.

It had about 90,000 miles on my rebuilt engine before the spedo cable broke. Put a few more miles on it before selling it. It was my philosophy to not push it hard. Most people tried to make them do things a 40 horse power engine isn't capable of doing. A friend of mine killed an engine in less than 20,000 miles.

Learning to rebuild carburetors and mechanical voltage regulators was kind of fun. Now not much use for those skills.

My old VW bus likely wouldn't be tolerated on the roads around here with 70 mph speed limits. Back when mine was on the road the national speed limit was 55. It could usually do that if there were no hills and a good tail wind.

jtk

[Erik Loza]

When my wife and I bought the Mini Cooper last year, one of my first questions to the sales rep was, "Where can I find a factory service manual?", to which he basically replied, "There is no hard copy that I know of. Our techs access an online database that is maintained by BMW and has all the schematics and procedures in it".

Helms made excellent FSM's for reasonably recent Honda vehicles but I don't if they do anything else. I have always gotten the vibe that these publishing companies can't or don't want to keep up with the manual side of things to the consumer. Unfortunately...

Erik

[Dave Lehnert]

Anytime I purchased a new car, first thing I would do is buy a Haynes repair manual. I will only do the most basic repairs myself. I liked having the manual so if I had a problem, I could get an idea what was wrong before going to a repair shop for an estimate.
In 2013 I purchased a new Chevy Equinox and still not able to get a Haynes Manual. This model has been made since 2010.

[Karl Andersson]

I had a '67 VW squareback that was 15 years old when I bought it - best repair manual ever was John Muir's "How to Keep your Volkswagen Alive", and it hardly had any pictures at all.

Until I bought my brand-new truck a couple of months ago, I always carried both the Chilton and Haynes manuals in my cars/ trucks. Between the two of them, you can get different camera angles and details for the same repair - and sometimes one book has an imprtant step the other leaves out. I can't say for sure which one is better, but some brain cell is telling me to prefer the Haynes manuals. I'm not sure why your manual missed telling you about some "extra features' of the repair, but in my experience, when working under/ inside the dash, the repair instructions will go something like "first remove radio access panel (see electronics section 5.9), then suspend steering column lock ring (see Suspension section 8.12) then (etc.etc.)...to access wiper motor access panel"; they only describe access to certain points once, and it never seems to be in the one chapter I'm looking at.

With that said, if you ever need to get inside the plastic dash for radios and other components, the Youtube vides have been a big help to me so i know where all those breakable little bayonet fittings are.

Karl