Factory Service Manual on CD

[Pascal Giasson]

I'm picking up my "new" 97 outback next week and have been looking for service manuals. Has anyone bought the factory service manuals CD offered on eBay? Are they any good? Thanks

[Marc_from_Detroit]

I too have been searching for a factory service manual either on CD or a used multiple volume set. I have a 93 Impreza AWD 1.8L

[medfurd]

I've wondering this too. There is one eBayer in particular, I think, who does CDs for lots of cars and has a good feedback rating.

[friendly_jacek]

You can try ebay but 2 things:

first, the data is usually pirated.

second, ask what you are getting.

I thought I would get factory manual, but I got mitchell software that is difficult to navigate and not as comprehensive as I thought. Still useful, though.

[Marc_from_Detroit]

Has anyone ever made a purchase from this website?

 

http://www.autoshoprepairmanuals.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=cd&Category_Code=SUI

 

It looks somewhat repputable, but I plan on continuing the search for a site with more information on the product.

[markmangicaro]

I bought one for my '96 Impreza on eBay for about $25 in June of 2003 from eBay member, "carmanualguy". The version I have consists of about 80 PDF files (Acrobat) and would be several hundred pages if I printed them all up. The disc has a lot of information way beyond my abilities, but I still find it useful. Navigation is pretty straightforard, occasionally I have to open 2 or 3 documents before I find the proper one, but it never takes more than 1 minute to find exactly what I need. All the diagrams say "courtesy Subaru of America" and have proven very accurate when taking the car apart. I have used it 6 or 7 times and it has certianly paid for it self many times over. Since it is a service manual it assumes you know how to do certian things (it does not describe an engine oil change for example) so in this respect it is much more advanced than a Haynes or Chilton book.

 

I don't know if the disc is pirated, and frankly don't care. It works.

 

friendly_jacek mentioned Mitchel software. I bought one of these CDs (from a different selller on eBay) for my Tacoma pickup and I agree, the Mitcehl CD is too cumbersome and not as useful as the one I bought for my Impreza from carmanualguy. If all you can find is Mitchel, it is better than nothing, but keep looking.

[friendly_jacek]

Another thing you might want to know.

When I did unrelated searches on USMB I came across a post with this link:

http://www.main.experiencetherave.com:8080/subaru_manual_scans/

Quite extensive library of manuals.

[paulandirene]

I recently bought a CD of manuals for my Outback on Ebay.....the seller's information insisted it wasn't pirated but once it arrived in the mail, it makes me suspicious that it WAS pirated. Hmmmmm, I guess I should have thought more before buying it because I don't like to contribute to piracy.

 

The CD had subdirectories for various components, but the pdf files themselves were given (not always) sequential numbering. Strangely, not one section had the "table of contents" page. (page 1) which makes me think the original page must have had copyright information on it.

 

The number of pages per pdf file varied, which in itself isn't so bad in itself. However, in many instances, there were overlapping pages So, if you printed out a section, filexxx01.pdf might have pages 2-6, filexxx02.pdf might have pages 5-12, file filexxx03.pdf might have pages 13-14, and file filexxx04.pdf might have pages 12-19. Therefore, if you printed all the pages of a section out....you'd be using a lot of pages to start the woodstove that night. If you printed up all the sections, you'd have enough paper to start your woodstove all winter long. And, if you were printing in "two sided" mode, you'd be going crazy.

 

I prefer to have the manual set online, and just print out pages as I need them. However, I wanted one file that held all pages for each section (missing of course the 'table of contents' page, grrrrr). I have an older "full" version of Adobe Acrobat at home, so I thought. 'hey, using a copy of the first page in a section, I can just pull each individual page into that file in sequential order and save the file."

 

Well, whomever built the manual set locked the pages, so that wasn't possible. However, I discovered that I was able to export each page to a postscript (.ps) file, then distill it back into a PDF. Then, starting with the first page (page 2, grrr), I brought in each page in sequence from other files, then saved the file under a new name. Although I ddn't take the time to generate and save any table of contents pages, I did add bookmarks to the files so that when I am online I can tell what is in the file.

 

So, I now have a manual set for my car....but to be truthful, it took quite a few hours to get it organized into a shape in which it is now.....would I buy it again? well...I'd really want to be sure it wasn't pirated. And...you really do get what you pay for....

[outback_97]

Another option:

 

http://techinfo.subaru.com/html/index.jsp

 

has 72 hour all-you-can-download for $34.95. Something to consider, unless you don't have access to a quick internet connection.

 

Steve

[Marc_from_Detroit]

Thanks for all the input. I really appreciate message board like this one.

 

I think I am going to go with Steve's suggestion.

 

 

 

 

[Forester_Ranger]

Another option:

 

http://techinfo.subaru.com/html/index.jsp

 

has 72 hour all-you-can-download for $34.95. Something to consider, unless you don't have access to a quick internet connection.

 

Steve

 

I downloaded both the 92 SVX and 98 Forester manuals from that website. You have 72 hours to do it and it will take all 3 days to download everything in the manual. Because they only allow you to download 20 files per hour. But it is a great deal.