There was a secret insider tip regarding Haynes manuals in the days before CD's.

Without fail, every time you went to look at a used car to buy privately, you said "You know, I'd buy this but I need a shop manual for it, if you had the Haynes I'd buy it off you at new price."

If they had one, they would whip it out in 30 seconds flat.

You then thumbed through it and looked for pages with oily thumbprints, those were the jobs that had ACTUALLY been done to the car, as opposed to what the seller claimed had been done, and claimed what problems the car did / not have.

The number of times I did that, then found oily pages on say the camshaft, then inspected the car and found a problem that the seller had botched, hoping to shift the car on.

The flipside was I bought a lot of cars very cheap, with zero service history, but good home mechanics that had done every job well, again highlighted by oily pages in the manual.

The good ones always wrote handwritten notes on the appropriate page in the manual of what they had done.

I have spent thousands with fastlane! I have no problem buying software. I personally use All Data at my shop but it does not go back to 1973. I did not realize that hosting a page of info someone paid for was "criminals hosting illegal software" but I guess MB thinks so. Thanks for the reply's! I will find the appropriate software.

__________________

1973 220D "Emerson"

Buy the CD, a printer and a stack of paper. Problem solved.

Haynes is made by hacks that take stuff apart and write what they see, the FSM was written by the people that made the car.

My goodness, it's good to see a stranger back again!

__________________
-Typos courtesy of my mobile phone.

Sounds like much of what is written on here Forced !

I am sure you will agree that Haynes manuals have their place.

Maybe you have a different use for it than our friend from the UK in the little room !!

You would agree Haynes has probably got more DIY guys out of trouble than into it?
Thanks for your vote of confidence in my method of hard copying a CD. I regularly print the required page or 2 & take them to the car. I guess the pages could end up any place when you are done with them.

Making notes on a hard copy is a good idea. A pdf editor program is a bit expensive.

__________________
Grumpy Old Diesel Owners Club group

I no longer question authority, I annoy authority. More effect, less effort....

1967 230-6 auto parts car. rust bucket.
1980 300D now parts car 800k miles
1984 300D 500k miles
1987 250td 160k miles English import
2001 jeep turbo diesel 130k miles
1998 jeep tdi ~ followed me home. Needs a turbo.
1968 Ford F750 truck. 6-354 diesel conversion.
Other toys ~J.D.,Cat & GM ~ mainly earth moving

Except the people here are good enough to share their experience for free.

Yes, but for $20 either way, I'd rather have something thats known correct. No need to get anything greasy, thats why gloves were invented.

There are several free ones now..

free pdf editor program
http://www.google.com/search?q=free+pdf+editor+program&rls=com.microsoft:en-us&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1&rlz=

Just as an FYI the classic tech page is down at the moment and the number listed on the page is the standard MB customer 800 number.

__________________
1983 Benz 240D - 263,060 (Current)
1983 Cadillac DeVille - 130,000 (Scrapped - Stupid HT4100)
1992 Dodge B350 - 150,000 (Sold)
1984 Mazda 626 - 299,997 (Scrapped)

Forced where is this $20 CD manual? The classic page is down. The MercedesManuals.com site says $40 down from $54. I don't want to pay $40 if you know where to get it for $20.

__________________

1973 220D "Emerson"