Why why why????
 

I'm sorry to be so blatant, but I think the Benz manuals on CD stink. On almost everything I had to do on this car, the information on the manual either did not exist or has been inaccurate. I'd expect better quality from Benz, especially for $150.

And yes, I did get the correct ones....

Specifics
 

Actually, I can specify my complaints about the manual in three destinct categories:

1. Completeness of information
I've got one of those lovely 1989 560 SELs with a ton of features, such as the rear window sunshade. Zilch in the manuals. This ended up not being a repair project, but a research project.

Also, the instructions on how to remove such things as door panels do not seem to apply to this model - I was truely frightened at breaking stuff and finally abandoned their directions on how to remove to door panels. The pictures of the trim around the switches resembled nothing like mine.

Have you ever tried to look up anything about your tranny on the CDs? Good luck!

2. Up-to-dateness of the information
I have to do a timing chain on mine fairly soon. Only by going to AllData.com did I realize I might have to do some grinding on the cylinder heads to make the new valve cover gaskets seal properly. Ouch!!

3. Bad IT
Pet peeve of mine, espcially with years of software engineering. Yes, they chose an unsearchable pdf format to simply show scanned images, but to force you use Adobe Acrobat 3.xx to have the CD loaded correctly, without ever considering that Acrobat reader might be updated, and you would NOT want to have Windows Explorer default to this older version - that's just simply dumb, and a pain in the a**. These are supposed to be world class engineers, and this simply looks stupid and behind the times. And maybe even arrogant.

Sorry to be so harsh about this, but I just expected better.

I copied my discs to my harddrive and created my own link tot he main program section to choose year of each disc.

Its very simple to load it now,a nd I dont have to have the computer flip out when I insert the disc. Works like a charm.

As for the info yeah a lot is weird with it, but, mine so far has proved useful.

Alon

At least you can GET info on your car with the CD.

I'm sure there is a lot on the W124, but I already have a Haynes manual for that. Not the best, but I can get by with most repairs on that one.

The R129 (or any SL for that matter) has no such manual or CD anywhere! So every venture into that car is a research project! Or I look for M-Benz on the other forum since he stripped his down to the bone to do a conversion upgrade.

Not sure if anything is available for the ML, but I got a year left on the factory warranty so I'd better find out soon...

Ashman - the placing the CD on the hard disk is a good idea - that's what I'll end up doing.

G-Benz: Sure, it's great a CD exists, but it's still a lousy and an inaccurate job. I'd expect better from Benz. Then again, I'm German (and from Stuttgart...)

(Oh, I forgot, so is Benz!...)

Obviously the information needs to be augmented, which is why I use the web site I mentioned earlier.

And then there is this truely fabulous board, where people who actually work on these things share their knowledge, hands on experiences, grudges, etc. It's called www.peachparts.com. Nothing beats them!.....

anyone who has ever worked with the hard copy service manuals that used to exist know of their shortcomings, however the CD is STLL a better alternative in spite of the fact that they are merely scanned pages of the paper manuals since you can't print the pages out at your convenience rather than dirtying up that nice $200-300 book.

one idea is to keep a binder and insert the printed pageds into the binder when you are done so should you need to re-visit a procedure, you don't have to re-print it. :)

re: the missing info. I could be wrong, but it's possible that they assume that you have access to the complete set of manuals. that could be why you're finding "dead links" as it were ;)

that said, i agree, the service manuals suck, but they are still better than the hanes manuals.

CD format
 

yhliem, tkamiya -

I don't think anyone would argue against the CD format being better all around than paper, as long as you can print what you need. So this is good and goes into the right direction. By the way - the binder idea is excellent, I haven't thought of that one yet.

It's more the quality of the info that drives me nuts, especially on the little stuff that could break small and perhaps expensive plastic parts or things on the interior. I'd probably have the same problem with the printed manuals. I'm always frightened that as I fix something I'll bust something else.

I don't even think there is a Haynes manual or any other than the MB manuals for the W126 (mine is an 89 560 sel). Does anybody know of one?

Re: CD format
 

oh, i agree with you there. I'm the same way...been known to wind up with a greater repair bill than i started out with 'cause i broke something along the way one or twice :(

i don't know if there are other manuals out there. fortunately i know enough of the local MB mechanics that i can pick their brains for free when i hit a roadblock...figuratively speaking ;)

yhliem
 

This board is a great help. Just knowing it's around gives you more confidence when tackling a new job.

Re: yhliem
 

that's what we're here for :)

You will NOT have to grind on the valve cover to make them seal...This is an old SI bulletin for the 300 D Turbo.

Ah! Du bist Deutsch! Ich bin von Stuttgart auch. Bad-Canstatt. Ich war dort geboren aber jetzt wohne ich in Vancouver.

And my German sucks a$$ 'cause i haven't really used it since I was 2! *LOL*:D

yhliem - SOWAS!!!
 

Aus Bad-Canstatt??!!!!

Vater aus Feuerbach, Mutter aus Breslau (Schlesien). Ich bin vom 1. bis zum 8. Lebensjahr in Stuttgart gross geworden (Uhlandshoehe, direkt in der Stadt!) Gehe mehrmals im Jahr zurueck! Meine Familie Vaeterlicher seits ist ur-Stuttgart!

(For the rest of you all - sorry about this - yhliem is from around the corner where I'm from in Germany, I mean a couple of subway stops away...)

yhliem - when was the last time you went to the zoo (Wilhelma)?

Henry!
 

We actually left Deutschland when I was only 2 and I haven't been back. Both of my parents have, but I've never had the chence to visit. :(

I still have family in Berlin, Muenchen, and Frankfurt. I would love to visit Stuttgart, and I plan to go back for my next trip...whenever that may be.

My parents are originally from Indonesia and were in Germany for school. Mein Vater ist Maschienbauingineur (sp?) beim Universitaet Stuttgart. One of his Praktikums was with Daimler-Benz.

And if I've ever been to Wilhelma, it would probably have been 1974 or 1975. We moved to Vancouver in May '75

tkamiya - Books vs CD - It really depends. I used to hate it when they started putting software development documentation only in electronic format. I remember having had a hard time getting used to it when Microsoft stopped shipping books (SQL server). So I now use a combination of aftermarket books and electronic documentation.

In terms of the Benz CD manual - print it out! It's gonna cost you $10 in paper, and some laser toner...


yhliem - Stuttgart is a very pretty place, actually. Worth a stop over. It's green, and the center of town is nesteled by hills and old vineyards with absolutely gorgeous homes along them. It's very expensive and very wealthy - next the Munich the most expensive place in Germany. The train station is impossible to miss - it has a huge Merceds Benz star rotating on the top of its tower!

You might consider visiting Germany via Stuttgart rather than Frankfurt - it's less stressful, and Delta Airlines flies there on a regular basis (out of Atlanta, I believe).

With that background, your dad could probably put a Benz together from scratch! ;)

Naaah..that's my job. he takes them apart and gets me to fix 'em. ;)

What is the cheapest way to get manuals for the 300e? Why doesn't someone post the PDF files on the net for everyone to get access to?

not sure if they apply, but copyright laws may have something to do with it?

mb manuals
 

I thought about a cd manual but after reading posts like these, Ikept searching on e-bay and finally won an auction. I am getting the factory engine manual and chassis manuals 1 & 2 for about $100. Consensus semms to to be for the paper manuals. I'll let you know of thier usefullness.

I can't resist chiming in here.
The CDs suck.
What is the point of digital media that is not searchable?
They could have easily thrown us a bone and built an index.
I takes forever to find anything. You have to guess which category your topic is under, then you go down 10 pages, only to find that your topic is down some other branch in the 'tree'.
If I have to wait for that stupid AVI movie to load one more time, I will scream!
I have even played with the idea of building my own index to the individual PDF files, but hesitate to invest the time. I do save direct links to files I want to revisit, which helps.
I have to conceed that they are better than nothing, but certainly do detract from my 'ownership experience'.
The reason for producing a CD that is essentially pictures of a paper manual is that the margins are really good. It costs only a couple of dollars to produce a CD they can sell for $150. Paper manuals are much more expensive to produce and ship.

Too bad they did not farm the job out to Bentley. They produce first-rate paper manuals for VW/Audi and some BMWs. Their prices are reasonable considering the suberb quality.

Now that I got that off my chest, it should be noted that people on Ebay frequently sell bootleg copies on the cheap. Also, I will not rat them out, but some folks have helpfully posted the entire contents of several of the CDs on their websites. The CDs somehow look a whole lot better when they are free!

These are the worst CD's I have ever used.Any other cd I open does so automaticly and is easy to search and use.This over one hundred dollar thing to the ones of us that are not very computer literate,Is junk.

Making the MB CDs searchable
 

Like a few other members on this board, my primary day job is programming and other computer-related things. I recently bought the CD set from eBay and was interested to see just how badly the CDs were organized. Actually, they are organized OK--for a MB dealer shop, or someone who uses them daily, that is.

I have begun building a system to greatly improve access to the information on the CDs. It will take a lot of repetitive, manual cut and paste operations and a fair amount of OCR (Optical Character Recognition) processing, but I have a great application package planned that will hopefully give a new lease on life for all that information that is tied to those inflexible HTML menus.

What is needed is a means for a casual user (a weekend tinkerer) to be able to see the menu titles of each file on the CDs and to find every occurrance of a given word or phrase, and then with a few clicks, be able to browse through the relevant pages and study or print the information found.

I spent last Saturday finding out just how much grunt labor will be necessary. Ten hours just to identify which menu titles are associated to which files within one of the larger folders.

The results were very telling--I found a few (and even one is too many) files that were not referenced and a few more that possibly referenced the wrong pages.

I manually built four hundred eighteen files for the CD1 Chassis folder alone. Just one of those files, titled the 'Functional Description of Airbags' or something similar, contained thirty-one pages of text and diagrams. There is a lot of information that will be made accessible via browsing or searching once I have finished the huge amount of grunt work and the programming to tie it all together.

I have hopes that the results will make a lot of MB owners happy and will make me a few bucks for my efforts to boot. The members of this forum can be my first (and possibly my only)critics when it is completed.

I feel your pain...
 

I bought the W124 and W126 CD's at an eBay auction. I paid only $20.00 apiece, so I guess I am not out a lot of cash.

I agree with everyone here: (1) the lack of a search engine; (2) the fact that one has to go back to the opening menu each time there is a new search; PLUS (3) the silly opening movie, all make the CDs almost unuseable...

Does anyone here know where radiator issues, especially radiator R&R, are located on the W124 CD? :confused: :confused:

I'd greatly appreciate a pointer in the right direction:D

If you build it, they will come...
 

RealNeal,
I went down the same path, and decided I am far too unambitious to expend that sort of effort. I would certainly be a very happy 'consumer' of your Index if you decide to build it.

Even a simpler 'Master Index' than you describe with just the main heading for each PDF file would add substantial value over the current design. Of course, sucking in all of those 'subheadings' would be even better...

3 cheers for realneal!

BENZ-LGB
Sorry, but if there is a reference to the radiator itself, it is in one of the PDF files which are graphics-based.

You may have to wait till I OCR them, but even if I get started this weekend, I do not know how long it will take to do them, since there are literally thousands to do.

OCR is a relatively slow process, since the software has to recognize a 'picture' of a given graphic character, then decide what character the 'picture' represents.

After all the characters in a file have been 'recognized', the system does a 'spell-check' to detect the presence of a 'invalid' character that would cause the word to be 'misspelled', like interpreting the character 'K' as an 'l' and a '<', causing 'Kitchen' to be spelled as 'l<itchen'.

Each time an invalid character is detected, the software has to stop for a human's intervention.

I'll see what I can do this weekend.