Alternative to Haynes manual

I've also got the Bentley manual - fearsome in it's detail, very well illustrated, well worth the cash. If nothing else, it's put me off "exploratory tinkering"! 

Cheers,
James.

malc52 wrote: Sorry guys, I was only trying to helpful in supplying the link.  My experience of Haynes manuals in the past (Renault 5, VW Polo, MKIII Cortina, yes and a Hillman Imp) has been pretty good.  OK, they do leave something to be desired in some detail (e.g. detailed diagrams), but then you get what you pay for.  I haven't seen a Bentley manual.  I would expect them to be an excellent reference manual for the price. Cheers Malc52

No need to appologise!

No you are quite correct the early Haynes manuals are very very good.  I have one for a MKIIII Cortina and it gives you everything, like exploded views of the gearbox and back axle.  Top notch, excellent but the clue is in what they call them nowadays.

In the days of Cortinas and the cars you mentioned the Manuals were called Owners Workshop Manuals. The Cortina book has a cut away drawing of a Cortina with the number plate showing OWM 343, the OWM standing  for Owners Workshop Manual and the book ref number 343.  Nowadays they are called Service and Repair manual and the picture of the car on the front with the number plate says 1469 and not OWM 1469.  Overhauling a gearbox is beyond most folk nowadays and is classed as workshop work hence the titles of the manuals.

Its the number of mistakes in them.  Vx Senator/Carlton lower arm ball joint re-newal and Ford Mondeo rear bumper removal leave a lot to be desired!

Andrew

Andrew Rolland wrote: kbannon wrote: @ Andrew - keep saving and get one for me! 'er indoors promised me one for my birthday last May and Im still waiting Cheer up Killian, t'is nearly May again, which means 'she who must be obeyed at all times' might just get you one for this coming birthday! Might need to drop some hints again, you know their heads get full of things like shoes and clothes and handbags and which celeb is sleeping with celeb and cleaning and tidying and need constant reminding. Andrew

more than likely it will be.. 'you don't mind ______ staying again for a week or two do you?

(the one that clomps around and wakes up everyone in the moddle of the night)

kbannon wrote: Assuming the E36 Haynes manual is similar to the one for the E30/E34 then it is useless compared to the Bentley

No, sir! The E36 is less useless than the E30/E34 one.

But it's still not very good.

The TIS plus the ETK (parts disc) is useful because there are lots of exploded diagrams. I find this more useful than pages of writing, since the bit you want to know about is always the bit glossed over by the manual author!

kbannon wrote: Assuming the E36 Haynes manual is similar to the one for the E30/E34 then it is useless compared to the Bentley

Spot on there Sir!

The Haynes Manuals only bear a passing resemblance to the car they are trying to describe.  Their limit of usefulness extends to changing brake pads/discs etc! 

Things like 'undo and remove the bolts securing the bumper' they don't tell you usefull things like where the bolts are and how many of them their are!  You end up tugging at something that doesn't budge cos you haven't found the last bolt!

I'm still saving up for my E39 Bentley manual.

I bought the E46 manual more so just out of interest and the amount of typos and non sence sentences are poor.  It hasn't been proof read at all.

Andrew

Assuming the E36 Haynes manual is similar to the one for the E30/E34 then it is useless compared to the Bentley

I was planning on ordering a Bently service manual online during my shift but when looking on amazon I found a big price difference. On the US amazon site the book in $50.32 which translates to �23 odd as where on the English amazon the same book is �34 or something like that! Is that because it is an american import book? Don't buy online often & if I do its always uk based. Will I incur loads of extra charges buying from the states & a long wait? If so I'll just fork out the extra money because I need it sooner rather than later.

Dean.

The Bentley manual for the Z3 is excellent so I would assume that the E36 would be equally as good. It is certainly better than the Haynes version for the Z3.

I think the one you are refering too is the Bentley manual which is supposed to be very good and well worth the cash, although I have yet to buy one myself. I got a so called electronic manual off Ebay called TIS. This is a version of the software that the dealers use. It is ok but since it only cost me a couple of quid, well worth it.