Quality of Mercedes service manual CD
 

I have both the paper service manual for the 123, 126 and 107. Chassis and engine. I bought the 123 Service manual CD. To get the AC and the rest of the manuals included in the CD. I purchased the CD from MBUSA.
The quality of the manual compared to the paper manual is poor especially the pictures. Does anyone find this to be true in the other models of the CD Service Manuals.
Below is a scan from a printout from the Service manual Cd and on top is the same scan from the paper manual. This is one of the worse pictures. But I would say that 25% of the pictures are this way. Is it just my CD or are you guys finding this in all the Mercedes Cd's.

Using Adobe Acrobat reader you can zoom in on the picture but the quality really goes down hill and you can't see anything.
Do the other Cd's have this problem? If so I may consider investing the $$ for the paper manuals.

Dave

Looks typical when you take a picture of a copy of a picture of a copy. :mad:
For the price they charge, somebody needs to complain LOUDLY !!!!

Actually for what they cost I believe its quite a deal. All the pictures were poor in the manuals. Only the line drawings were much use.

Just the wiring diagrams (which print just fine) are worth the price by modern standards. I keep the CDs for the bootom line while having all the ETMS. I have all the manuals in print and they really were quite poor form the standpoint most are interested - repair procedures.

The pictures on my disc are all pretty decent, lot's better than that lower one on your scan.

Gilly

I agree with Gilly - mine are preety decent and I have none nearly as poor as the one you display.

Which manual? Mine is for the W123 series. This is the worse picture. I would say about 5% are that way, 25% are bad. Some are great but I'm not impressed with the quality of the CD. Maybe I shoudl contact Mercedes.

Dave

The 126 manual has wiring diagram scans that are plain unreadable. Try chasing a dozen lines into and out of a shaded area.

I've seen how good scanned shop manual can be. These are terrible.

Sixto
95 S420
87 300SDL

Interesting. I went to this site

http://skinnerbox.steaky.org/123_DISK2/program/123-cd-index.html

In the online manual for the 123 manual, I went to the page of the manual that had the pictures that I copied. There is quite a difference in quality. (area 46-steering, job 710, page 4)

So I will contact Mercedes tomorrow and see if they can replace the CD I have. Obviously the one I have, has something wrong with it.

Dave

My experience has been that the pictures are not too great and some of the drawings are also poor. That being said, I have found that acrobat 6.0 gives better reproduction than the old 3.0 that comes with the CD. Just go out to the Adobe website and load 6.0, then start the program up BEFORE you start up the CD. See if that doesn't look a bit better (prints better too)

got his this morning, any help??
 

I don't know how many of you guys and gals have the MB Model 126
Service Library CDs. I know most folks that have used them, have been
less than enthusiastic about the index system that MB provided. It's a
combination of HTML and Flash code, is slow, and in some earlier
versions, didn't work correctly.

The same was true for the Model 124 CDs. So a couple of years ago, I
created an Index for the Model 124 CDs. I recently decided to do the
same for some of the other models. The first up was the Model 126,
which I have now pretty much completed, with the help of some folks
from the Ritter/Easley list. I've also updated the Model 124 Index a
bit.

So basically, this Index makes the use of your CDs easier. You simply
download my Index, copy all of the files from the your two W126 CDs,
and you are ready to go using your internet browser as your navigator.
Below is a bit of info from the ReadMe file that is included with the
download.

Model 126 Maintenance Manual Index Files
#
--Introduction
These files were an outgrowth of my Model W124 Index Files which were
designed to make it easier to navigate around your Mercedes-Benz CD
Service Library Manuals.

As this is a beta version, I would appreciate any and all feedback,
concerning any bugs, broken links, bad formatting, grammar or spelling,
anything else you find that you are not expecting, or anything you
expected to find, but did not! Please help us make it better. All
suggestions welcomed.
#
--Donationware
Clearly, this is a labor of passion (some would say an obsession). But
it is fed in part by the sense of community I have received from
belonging to several online Lists and Forums dedicated to these fine
automobiles that we drive.

If the urge to contribute to the furtherance of this endeavor moves
you, please consider making a donation to support the continued
operation of the MBcoupes list.
#
--Version 1.0b1 - first public release
This is a work in progress. We've revised the Model W124 index set to
work with the Model W126 CDs. Much of the hard work has been done by
these fine volunteers:

Gary Vogel
Gerry Visel
Hank J. Doll
Howard Fulford
John Freer
John Nelson
Nap Hodges
Raymond McGill
Tom Domingues
Ian Read
Hazen Arnold
#

------
So, I now have the Model 126 Index ready for its first release, along
with an update of the Model 124 Index. In addition there is a Service
Library collector of sorts, that, as we add more models, will allow all
of them to be accessed from one place.

One thing that Gerry, Ian and I discovered is that there is a bug, err,
undocumented feature, in Microsoft's Internet Explorer v6. It will not
properly support the pull-down menus that I included for some of the
larger PDF files. The pull-downs enable you to jump directly to a
sub-heading in the PDF. Apparently, Mozilla Firebird doesn't have the
problem, nor does Safari on the Macintosh. Most everything else should
work just fine for either platform.

As I said, if you care to make a donation, and I encourage you to do
so, please send your support to the leader of this fine List. It will
be appreciated, I'm sure.

So, here ya go: <http://drmemory.org/~dakota/MB/maintenance/index.html>

Remember, if you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask. Read the
ReadMe files for simple directions on how to install.

Hopefully, things will go well, but in case they don't, please let me
know: dakota@mac.com

Kind Regards,
Steve Nervig
Seattle

--
All Your Base Are Belong To Us


_______________________________________________
W124list mailing list
W124list@mbcoupes.com
http://www.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/w124list

The pictures on my W123 disc are not always great either. Usually dark so you can't see the detail. And some of the line drawings almost fade out. You can tell MB just scanned in the pages from a paper copy. Photos don't always come out good doing that. I mainly use the disc to print off pages that I will get dirty later or when the books are not around. I bet the CD manuals for newer cars are 1000% better as they are most likely done completely with computer publishing software.

A follow up on the Service Manual CD. I just got my replacement CD from Mercedes. Brand new in a sealed box. But-- the same problem. The quality of the pictures are not always good. So I'll live with it and buy the paper manuals for the 560SL.
I'll try Acrobat 6.0 to see if it helps.

Dave

index to W126 workshop manual
 

This seems to be an old thread, but I thought I'd give it a try...

I'm looking for a user-friendly index to the W126 service (workshop) manual, to make using the CD a bit easier. Forum posts suggest that Steve Nervig and friends have produced one and put it up on the web. But the links I have found to the site don't work. Has someone (DC or MBUSA) jumped on it from a great height and killed it off?

br1anstorm

Answer
 

My best guess would be YES...

There where several similar websites, they all went down in a couple of months.

LITIGATION has that effect... :eek: :eek: :eek:




Have a great day.

The 107 manual on CD was produced with old-technology scanners and designed to fit on a (now old-technology) CD. Many (in fact, most) pages of the original manuals are missing; this complilation was designed to hit only the "high points".


MB should make a new one, copying each page verbatim of the manual, and scan the manual (if no original artwork exists) at a MUCH higher DPI; put it on a two DVD's (holding 30x the data of the original). This would be a great project but, of course, there are big legal issues and only MB can do it.

The Steve Nervig index is still available!
 

Thanks, whunter, for this response to my query. But I have some good news. After posting my message, I kept searching for the Steve Nervig index site - and eventually I found it alive and well at this address
http://web.mac.com/dakota/iWeb/Mercedes/Indexes.html

I haven't checked back with the original link on this forum, but I guess that either the link was broken/inaccurate, or the site has moved since the original posts were put up back in 2004. I'm pleased to say that the index is still downloadable and works a treat.

And to be honest, I can't see why DC or MBUSA would want to obstruct this. The index doesn't trespass on their copyright. It is an original and free-standing piece of work which complements their product and is produced by a guy whose motives are entirely honourable.

We all owe Steve and his friends huge thanks...

br1anstorm

Hmmm
 

I was referring to braingears.com and other websites.

They all went down in a couple of months.

LITIGATION has that effect..

service/workshop manuals, and other things
 

Yup, it's clear that braingears.com (and other similar sites) have - sadly for some - ceased to function. But I'm happy to have the Steve Nervig index, which makes using the (official...?) MBUSA CD/DVD manual much easier.

On a vaguely related subject, it would be useful to have (as a sticky somewhere?) an expert explanation of the difference between Mercedes Benz' WIS (Workshop Information System), TIS (Technical Information System) and EPC (Electronic Parts Catalogue). It gets confusing when some, or all, of these are referred to as "workshop manuals"...

br1anstorm

Just a quick update to this one.

I think Steve Nervig closed down his site last year (2012), but the Mercedes list is now hosting the downloads of his manual index.

The Mercedes-Benz Discussion Lists - Home Page

Choose Other Stuff , MB Service Library Indexes from the menu.

Mercedes now hosts most of the manuals online at (you don't need to login or spend any money)

http://www.startekinfo.com/StarTek/doclist.jsp

Good luck

Jonathan

If you want half way decent manuals or diagrams, then I HIGHLY recommend checking out Alldata.com. They provide most of the data for the garages and repair facilities, and they have everything you could ever want. Usually in far better quality than the original manuals or diagrams. They also have repair flow charts, detailed real world repairs from technicians, all kinds of stuff. For the wiring diagrams they have the COLOR wiring diagrams. In this case COLOR is a proper name as opposed to just a description. They go through all the wiring diagrams for vehicles, and they recreate them in a standardized, color, and interactive format. The corporate subscriptions are understandably expensive, but they offer subscriptions for personal use as well that are incredibly reasonable. The difference is basically instead of getting access to every vehicle ever made...you get access to your vehicle. A 2 year subscription is like $30, and a 5 year is like $50. You can also download the information once you have access. The downloads, unfortunately, aren't interactive like the online versions, but they are still exceptional.

Since your posting in June have you gone further with alldata?


Thank you

The English language W123 FSM has dreadful pictures - if however you can get your hands on the German language original version you will find perfect crystal clear pictures...

...I can only assume the pictures sent to the technical authors who did the English language version were first photcopied then faxed and then photocopied again and then had coffee spilt on them (!)