I often use this site for service info. It’s all pirated from ALLDATA. Currently a comprehensive subscription to service info is around $180/mo. A modern repair shop can’t function without service information.
Seems to be US specific. Can't see manuals for the last 3 cars I've had: 2001 BMW 330d, 2010 BMW 330i, 2011 Ford C-Max petrol. Renault stops in 1987, Peugeot stops in 1993, and there's nothing for Citroen, Vauxhall or Rover/MG at all.
(Realoem is pretty comprehensive for BMW parts numbers, if you need them)
That said, a lot of newer official service manuals don't really go into detail and just give instructions on how to disassemble and swap parts; better than no manual, but a huge contrast from older ones that would also include detailed theory of operation and troubleshooting information.
Arguably, many of the things you’ll need to work on for newer vehicles are likely far outside the casual mechanic’s expertise and require a lot of bespoke and expensive equipment to service.
Everything else, like oil, brakes or fluid changes are basically the same as any other car. I understand that this kind of runs afoul of the spirit of this post, but there’s a reason many engines are simply replaced when they encounter some kind of major malfunction.
I am an amateur mechanic, but have done a great deal of very technical work. My only formal training is three years of high school shop classes, everything else I learned under or in a car. The newest thing I have worked on is a 2022 GMC Sierra. Seemed to be pretty much the same as my 2003 Chevy Silverado.
You are definitely correct about foreign (non-USA) makes. My wife had an Audi when we got married. I own a small toolbox of tools specific to her Audi S4 that I will never use again, but that was a 2006, so this issue predates 2013 for the makes that it is true about.
Admittedly, I try to avoid fuel injected vehicles. So I don't go out of my way to work on new things.
There will never unfortunately be an open-source car. The nearest you will get is by getting a well-documented one with good OEM parts availability and converting it to an EV which eliminates a lot of the proprietary computers that seem to cause issues. EV drivetrain and battery parts are mostly well documented and interchangeable and can even be open-source, and Air bag and ABS computers in older cars also mostly work stand-alone (ie they will work properly if the cars computer is not there)
Newer cars have much better safety systems but have unfortunately gone all in for making things difficult.
> there’s a reason many engines are simply replaced when they encounter some kind of major malfunction.
Only a catastrophic failure[1] results in an engine replacement. For the p99 of car owners out there (especially in rust-prone areas), the engine will outlast the body by a large margin.
[1] And for some types of catastrophic failure, such as overheating damage, it's still cheaper to replace the head only.
This isn't true for many makes and models. It's different than older models because troubleshooting or servicing starts with interrogating or commanding the car with specific software that isn't basic OBDII but with OBD adapters and cheap software both my 2010's Volkswagen and Jeeps can be diagnosed and serviced with an OBD reader.
Ironically my old Toyota is one of the hardest to really get at sensor and dealer-software changes.
In personal experience, VW manuals are atrocious to figure out while Toyota, at least around 2000 put out wonderful service manuals even if the ECU's are locked down.
Thank you so much for this! I'm constantly needing to Google for torque specs when I work on my van, and as great as the Odyssey forum is it's really nice to have this. I really appreciate it, personally. I do all my own work, and it would be nice if manufacturers made this information more easy to access for those of us who do.
Torque specs you generally do get a feel for. It's basically related to bolt size. I mean, generally. Use torque specs inside the engine. Outside the engine go by feel
Well, there's confounding factors: the type of bolt (such as stretch bolts), the material the bolt is going into (heads are aluminium, while some sleeves in aluminium parts are not), whether the bolt is lubricated before insertion (spark plugs really should be lubricated), etc.
I love old original FSMs (factory service manuals) and tend to buy them for a car I’m beginning to restore. I’ll reach out to these folks to see if they’d be interested in scans of them or whatever they use to build this site.
I’ve always been curious about how many different manuals there seem to be for every car. I know that the manufacturers create one for dealers and that there are/were companies that tear cars down to make their own, but it feels like when I’ve needed to go find instructions for things there’s a staggering variety of manuals of varying levels of helpfulness.
Even when I manage to find what I think is an FSM it seems a little hard to follow what’s really going on in a given section without reading the section for every other assembly involved.
You’re totally right about this. I’d say there’s a very wide range of quality between various manufacturers’ FSMs. Toyota ones are great with diagnostic instructions and explicit parameters to match, whereas other brands I’ve leafed through have completely muddy pictures and poor instructions or no figures.
For third parties, I find Bentley manuals to be extremely good and thorough.
The piece I like about this is less the manual about how to do the things—although that's always helpful—but the information about parts and labor. I assume the cost of things is out of date, but it's nice to have some baseline for labor time. Most folks (with ICE vehicles anyway) aren't doing most maintenance or repairs, so reducing the information asymmetry with various repair shops is a welcome tool.
Readit News
I have some CD filled with I guess downloads from a factory online manual. It’s not the best experience to be sure.
(Realoem is pretty comprehensive for BMW parts numbers, if you need them)
That said, a lot of newer official service manuals don't really go into detail and just give instructions on how to disassemble and swap parts; better than no manual, but a huge contrast from older ones that would also include detailed theory of operation and troubleshooting information.
which sadly means that no current car models are included.
Everything else, like oil, brakes or fluid changes are basically the same as any other car. I understand that this kind of runs afoul of the spirit of this post, but there’s a reason many engines are simply replaced when they encounter some kind of major malfunction.
You are definitely correct about foreign (non-USA) makes. My wife had an Audi when we got married. I own a small toolbox of tools specific to her Audi S4 that I will never use again, but that was a 2006, so this issue predates 2013 for the makes that it is true about.
Admittedly, I try to avoid fuel injected vehicles. So I don't go out of my way to work on new things.
Newer cars have much better safety systems but have unfortunately gone all in for making things difficult.
Only a catastrophic failure[1] results in an engine replacement. For the p99 of car owners out there (especially in rust-prone areas), the engine will outlast the body by a large margin.
[1] And for some types of catastrophic failure, such as overheating damage, it's still cheaper to replace the head only.
Ironically my old Toyota is one of the hardest to really get at sensor and dealer-software changes.
In personal experience, VW manuals are atrocious to figure out while Toyota, at least around 2000 put out wonderful service manuals even if the ECU's are locked down.
Well, there's confounding factors: the type of bolt (such as stretch bolts), the material the bolt is going into (heads are aluminium, while some sleeves in aluminium parts are not), whether the bolt is lubricated before insertion (spark plugs really should be lubricated), etc.
Bolt size is just another variable.
I love old original FSMs (factory service manuals) and tend to buy them for a car I’m beginning to restore. I’ll reach out to these folks to see if they’d be interested in scans of them or whatever they use to build this site.
Even when I manage to find what I think is an FSM it seems a little hard to follow what’s really going on in a given section without reading the section for every other assembly involved.
For third parties, I find Bentley manuals to be extremely good and thorough.