The 24 Hours of Lemons Forums → Other Random Car Stuff → Haynes VS. Chilton
Which car manual do you all prefer?
Agree with Murilee, but if that's not available, in this order: Bentley, then Haynes, then conventional wisdom, then what the homeless guy under the bridge recommends, then coin flip, then Chilton, then reading entrails, then the AllData website.
I'd rather wipe my butt with a Chilton's than use it for any car work. Haynes doesn't suck too bad, and it's often better than some of the early '80s factory manuals.
Helms!
Get a helms manual. Close to, if not the same as, the factory manual.
Link: http://www.helminc.com/
I was let down by the E30 Bentley manual.
My friend has a Brit manual on Miatas and it's pretty effin' thorough.
You can find just about any factory shop manual you want on eBay, usually for under 25 bucks. Lots of dudes selling bootleg scanned versions on CD for a couple of bucks, too.
Agree with Murilee, but if that's not available, in this order: Bentley, then Haynes, then conventional wisdom, then what the homeless guy under the bridge recommends, then coin flip, then Chilton, then reading entrails, then the AllData website.
lol.... All good, but I'd rather do the entrails reading before Chilton... My teamies brought one for the Neon, and it actually labelled the Alternator a Generator! When was it written 1902?
Oh, one exception. When I was first learning how to work on cars, there was only ONE manual that spoke to what to do when the thing breaks when you are driving around. It had no pictures, just drawings, and it showed what a dirty used car actually looked like from the roadside rather than how it looks all disassembled on the bench. These are bar-none the best repair manuals ever - funny too..... <drum roll>.... John Muirs books. Not sure how many he did, but had one for air cooled vw, the rabbit, and soob I think.. not sure if there were others... really great stuff tho, and got me home on a couple occasions with my 79 Rabbit and 78 Scirocco...
I guess it depends on the car and the level of mechanical knowledge you have to start with. On a 3-gen J-body (Cavalier/Sunfire) the FSM sucks IMO. It's FOUR separate manuals and it's hard to find anything since the index sucks. They don't have lame diagrams which doesn't help. I also have a Haynes, which is better in some aspects, worse in others. The problem I find with Haynes is they cover too broad of a spectrum on cars/trim levels/engines, etc. in just one book. I know it's cost prohibative, but I like something more specific.
In total contrast, the FSM for our Honda Prelude is awesome. Easy to find stuff, great diagrams, etc.
I have a factory service manual for an a-body and that thing is great, must have gotten lazy for the j-body
You can also occasionally find entire .pdf's of them on tha interwebs. A quick googling produced a Bentley Manual used to replace our head gasket.
I remember Bentley being great for the 80s-90s German cars I grew up working on.
I think I did just as well going blind on the head of the Mazda as I did with the Chilton manual for round 2 when I did rings. It made for bad toilet paper when it came to electronics.
I guess it depends on the car and the level of mechanical knowledge you have to start with.
1993 Toyota Corolla and novice level skills.
Alldata.
The 24 Hours of Lemons Forums → Other Random Car Stuff → Haynes VS. Chilton