Free Auto Repair Manuals

auto repair manual image

Paid for auto repair manual

Is there such a thing as free auto repair manuals? I receive several e-mails a day asking me to send free car repair manuals for specific vehicles. Of course I do not have any or the right to send copyrighted material for free (And I don’t) but it is a good question.

My mother always told me that nothing in life is free. But since I have seen advertisements for free car repair manuals around the net I decided to check into it and see if my mother was wrong.

There are several websites that state they have free repair manuals for your individual vehicle. I went to a couple of these websites to check it out for myself. I spent a couple of hours visiting several different locations with mixed results.

At one of these locations I typed in the year make and model of the vehicle I was looking for service procedures and diagnostic tree charts for. It brought me to a page that said click here to download. When I clicked on the button a pop-up was generated.

The box that opened up stated that I would have to jump through some hoops to get what I wanted. There were six necessary steps that needed to be completed before I would receive my free download. The first step was to join an Internet movie database that had some type of contract. The other five steps also included signing up for scary long-term agreements.

Is there any free auto repair manuals?

The next site I went too seemed a little better. There were no pop-ups or warnings from my Norton insight program. There also seemed to be a lot of download-able PDF repair manuals. So once again I searched for a specific vehicle within the very popular General Motors brand.

picture from auto repair manual

Figure from Repair manual

Once again I was disappointed that no repair manual was available for my chosen specific vehicle. In fact most of the General Motors information was actually owner’s manuals that were available for download or reprint. Although an owner’s manual does provide some value it is not very helpful for fixing specific auto repair problems.

In the end I wound up with a ton of evil spy-ware and pop-ups. I did not find actual repair manuals for a specific vehicle. I completely understand that people want stuff for free. I like free stuff myself. Let’s be honest with each other and admit that time is worth money. If you spend several hours looking for something that you could get in a few minutes for under $10 isn’t it actually worth the money?

Also for $10 you get a factory quality repair manual with no spy-ware or any other problems associated from the downloading process. If you don’t want to spend a lot of money on reference materials take a look at my video about Mitchell’s auto repair online manuals. This is a web based system that you log into. There is nothing to download and there are no hoops to jump through.

You tell me where the free repair manuals are

Mitchell repair manual image

Mitchell Manuals Online

I’m not saying that you can’t find a car repair manual for free on the Internet. With the vastness of the wild wild web there’s got to be free repair diagrams somewhere. But after a couple of hours of my own personal search I had to stop for my own sanity.

Was my mother right about nothing in life is free? In my opinion the couple of hours that I spent looking for something for free was not only destructive to my computer but was a complete waste of time. So Mom if you’re reading this I say once again that you were right.

This article about free auto repair manuals is just my opinion. Again I’m sure that there are places you can go to get free information. And if you know of a high quality place where you can get free auto repair manuals please leave a comment below this post. Note that any links provided to spamming websites or filled with pop-ups and spy-ware will be deleted!

Thank you for taking the time to visit this auto repair information blog. I do provide free articles for specific car repairs on this blog. But this should in no way be mistaken for free auto repair manuals. I should also mention that this website as well as my other ones contain advertisements that may or may not generate revenue for the individuals that wrote the articles. I blame my Mother for this. She always told me that peoples time is valuable and they should be compensated for it.

About Mark
Mark Gittelman is an ASE Certified Automotive Master Technician With more than 26 years experience in the auto repair field. See Mark's Car Repair Credentials and Work History on Google+.

Comments

4 Responses to “Free Auto Repair Manuals”
  1. Trail Blazer says:

    I did some poking around as did you. I was unable to get factory or even Chilton style repair manuals for free, specifically for my trail blazer. Even the websites with free repair manuals in the domain name did not have them. Did find several places that had PDF owners manuals. Since I bought my truck used this was of some value. I was looking for spark plug maintenance intervals as recommended by the factory.

  2. Claus Felix Huberty says:

    Mother was so right, Claus Felix

  3. melvin says:

    Autozone.com has free repair manuals. I think they are a copy of a name brand paper manual.

  4. Jerry says:

    You have to use common sense along with the Manuals. Sometimes a manual may not be correct and you’ll know it when doing the repair.
    I also get my frame manuals from http://www.autobodytoolmart.com

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