Many people search for online workshop and service manuals, however as anyone who has tried to find their car’s manual will know, finding legitimate websites that offer this can be tricky. A lot of people resort to purchasing them on CD from eBay, however what most don’t realise is that the items on offer on eBay are often simply taken from legitimate sites who already host the content for free.
Today I would like to introduce you to my favourite website for automotive manuals. They offer over complete workshop specification manuals for over 100 vehicles, with the range constantly updated, and downloading them is 100% free.
These manuals aren’t owners handbooks, but full specification information to repair anything your car requires, from something simple like removing a side mirror, to completely removing and rebuilding the engine. They are the same manuals the dealer used when the car was new to service and repair your vehicle, so you know the information is of very high quality.
When I was working in a Japanese import repair shop, we would often refer to the manuals offered on this website when we didn’t have the specifications ourselves, back in 2010 the site was mostly Japanese cars, but has since expanded to cover basically every make. We never had a problem with the reliability of this information, but of course purchasing a paper copy of a manual if you can is always the best way to go.
Note that all the downloads are in PDF files, some may be zipped but inside the zip file is always PDF documents. Download restrictions do apply, so make sure you choose to download the exact make and model you need, don’t go crazy trying to download many of them or you will be blocked before you get your required models manual.
Something else to consider is that they only offer manuals for older cars, so if your car is fairly new or just out of warranty, it’s unlikely that you will be able to find any information on here, most of the manuals are those that are no longer in use by dealers, hence are released to the public following this stage.
If your model vehicles manual is not available, you can always contact them via email too, and they will try to source the manuals themselves and let you know once available. I have done this before with a manual for a Diahatsu Charade and within a week they had an original manual from a dealership.
So if after-market manuals are not available for your car, or you just need some quick information to help you out with a repair, consider visiting AllCarManuals.com before you try searching elsewhere, it will hopefully save you a lot of time in trying to locate the manual yourself, and money in that you can be sure your repair goes smoothly, without having to second guess anything.
