Any - Haynes manuals - as good as they used to be? | Motoring discussion | Back Room Forum

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Wed 7 Apr 2010 10:42

Any - Haynes manuals - as good as they used to be? - DP

Is it me, or do Haynes manuals seem to be less accurate / more error prone than they were? This was prompted by a post in Technical regarding a 406 steering rack, which reminded me of a time my brother in law and I used a Haynes manual to change a steering rack on a 306 D Turbo. All was going well until we came to physcially extract the old rack from the car. We spent a good hour trying to extract it from the side of the car instructed in the book, and failed. In a moment of inspiration, we manouevred it the other way, and it slid straight out. And yes, we followed their definition of left and right explained at the start of the manual.

I've come across others recently as well. The instructions for changing the indicator stalk on my S60 involved a whole list of work (probably 40 mins worth) including removing the airbag and steering wheel, and the resulting need to lock some component on the column as a result that was completely unnecessary. Shroud off, undo two screws, pull old stalk off, push new stalk on, do up two screws, shroud on was all that was needed.

The instructions in the mk4 Golf book for winding a Golf rear caliper back in without the correct tool don't work, with no mention that you need to apply pressure to the piston at the same time as you rotate it. OK, this might be common sense, but the photo illustration of a hand holding a pair of circlip pliers and gently rotating the piston could not be further from reality.

I have done my own maintenance for the past 18 yrs, with a lot more in the earlier days with older/more unreliable cars, and lower budgets. The older manuals were always spot on. Nowadays, I do less myself, but of the past half dozen jobs I've tackled, I would say there's been something misleading or plain wrong in the instructions for half of them.

Does anyone else share this view?

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Wed 7 Apr 2010 11:20

Any - Haynes manuals - as good as they used to be? - madf

The instructions for changing the Yaris petrol timing chains say remove the sump. No need: just drain it of oil.

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Wed 7 Apr 2010 11:37

Any - Haynes manuals - as good as they used to be? - mike hannon

You may well be right. They certainly aren't produced to the same standards they used to be.
For Christmas my sister gave me a Haynes branded plastic model kit of an E-type Jaguar. It is unbelievably rubbishy and looks like a cheapo Chinese copy of a similar kit made years ago.

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Wed 7 Apr 2010 12:26

Any - Haynes manuals - as good as they used to be? - Sofa Spud

I don't think Haynes manuals are as good as they used to be. For instance, now they don't go into dismantling gearboxes - saying that's a specialist job. Well, so is dismantling a modern engine, but they tell you how to do that. In the early days of Haynes manuals they had competition, with Autobooks and others, so they had to offer something extra. Now, as far as I know, the only competition is from manufacturer's own manuals, which are often not available to the general public.

Having said that, Haynes manuals are still useful. However, there isn't one for our latest purchase, a VW Touran (no, we didn't get a Mercedes A-Class in the end!) I could buy a Golf Mk 5 Haynes manual, but somehow that seems a clumsy solution.

'Haynes' hasn't quite become a generic name for workshop manuals of all kinds, in the way that Hoover did for vacuum cleaners, Transit did for vans or Jeep did for utility 4x4s - but maybe we should start the trend....... 'Haynes' colloquially, a generic term for a workshop manual!

Edited by Sofa Spud on 07/04/2010 at 12:27

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Wed 7 Apr 2010 12:32

Any - Haynes manuals - as good as they used to be? - dieseldogg

Haynes car maintenance manuals were never that good.

As for each of the few cars I have owned I have found glaring omissions, for instance way back in the 1980's when I was driving a Renault 5, despite very clear extensive instructions as to how to remove the bonnet , complete with unnecessary photos, a task however that a complete idot could have achieved simply by looking at the mounting arrangment /hinges......... they did NOT find it necessary to explain that there were 14 fixings securing the clutch housing to the engine,............ nor indeed that two of them were impossible to see and very inacessible forby. ...........DOH indeed

This was found to be the same ( only different) for the BX Citroen and the Galaxy

Plus always a tedious repititive amount of bodywork preperation painting information repeated in each and every different manual, when this should simply have been sold as a seperate stand alone publication

They are however fine as a source for valve settings / ignition timing? etc

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Wed 7 Apr 2010 12:41

Any - Haynes manuals - as good as they used to be? - Muggy

I wonder if this quality issue is because Haynes no longer produce only the traditional manuals?

They produce the Haynes Manual format for books about all sorts of things eg Spitfires, Lancasters - very interesting in their own right, but possibly a distraction from their core business?

My 3 year old son has a Haynes Manual for Thomas the Tank Engine, of all things, for goodness sake!

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Wed 7 Apr 2010 19:03

Any - Haynes manuals - as good as they used to be? - b308

I think that its more to do with the fact that modern cars do not lend themselves to the old style Haynes treatment... there are just too many things that could not be done... BTW the reference to "Do not touch, get an expert in" has been around for ages... my 70s/80s Haynes manual tells be to send the BorgWarner Auto box on my Princess away for treatment if its not well...

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Wed 7 Apr 2010 19:11

Any - Haynes manuals - as good as they used to be? - corax

I find that Haynes manuals do everything exactly to the correct procedure, even if that means removing stuff that never needed to be removed.

If I want to do something on the car, I look it up on the web, as there are so many people out there who have already done the job, and have found out the quickest or easiest way to do it. And keep the Haynes manual as a general guide/back up.

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Wed 7 Apr 2010 19:18

Any - Haynes manuals - as good as they used to be? - Mike H

I agree - in my experience, they were always prone to the "Remove the assembly" syndrome, with no explanation asto how to achieve said removal! This was, of course, followed by "Replacement is the reverse of removal". Adequate in some areas, inaccurate in others, and totally useless for the very section you needed to reference urgently.

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Wed 7 Apr 2010 21:22

Any - Haynes manuals - as good as they used to be? - Devolution

I agree with sentiments posted here. On an old Volvo S70 the haynes manual wanted me to spend a long time removing various screws and bolts to replace a pollen filter, which can be done in ten minutes by just lifting the part you need.

On the other hand, the S60 Haynes shows what a wonderful easy 2 minute job changing the headlight bulbs is, which is fine if the whole headlamp is sitting on your table.

I still religiously get a Haynes for each car I've had, and find it useful as a reference to certain things, or to locating odd parts or fuses and so on.

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Wed 22 Sep 2021 20:28

Any - Haynes manuals - as good as they used to be? - DukeNukem

Autofix: Rubbish. For a UK Ford Transit aside from a comprehensive service schedule, the information was generic for petrol! engines. Despite a promising sales pitch absolutely nothing on replacing glow plugs/injectors or 'Ford' sticky gear solutions.

Softback books: Still come with self-disintegrating paper & out of focus irrelevant photographs.

Way better information free online

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Wed 22 Sep 2021 21:59

Any - Haynes manuals - as good as they used to be? - Rumfitt

The worst thing about Haynes manuals is the appalling picture quality. Often you get a poorly lit grainy black and white image, printed on non-white recycled paper.

I gave up using them a long time ago and now use YouTube and forums for getting up to speed on fixes.

Factory workshop manuals are a different kettle of fish and can be very detailed, with clear diagrams.

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Thu 23 Sep 2021 11:09

Any - Haynes manuals - as good as they used to be? - Steveieb

Even down to the type of Steering hydraulic oil in VW s which is mineral oil on some models not auto gearbox oil.

What damage would this cause ?

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