R.I.P. Haynes manuals

[I like Skol]

They all share "Re-assembly is the reverse of the above".

TBH, Haynes are not a guide for the stupid and clueless! You do need a basic natural ability and some common sense before diving in and if you are the person that struggles to reassemble the blender after washing the parts, then maybe you are not the car fixing type?

 

[MichaelW2]

I tried "Re-assembly is the reverse of the above". With an old Shimao Altus gear shifter that I had taken apart. It did not go well.

 

[slowmotion]

I tried "Re-assembly is the reverse of the above". With an old Shimao Altus gear shifter that I had taken apart. It did not go well.

Yes, it's like mountaineers. A fair few come to grief on the descent.

 

[FrankCrank]

All the old bangers I owned over the years, and had to have a Haynes for each one. Then got my first new car, a Punto, and of course went and bought a Haynes manual, as you do. Had the car for about 3 years, and serviced at main dealers, so never got to use the manual in anger as it were

 

[Archie_tect]

I've still got my Haynes Manual for my VW Beetle 1200 somewhere, the spine had gone and it was stuck together with sellotape... the book not the car- that went 38 years ago.

 

[Drago]

Did anyone else used to borrow them from the library, complete with the previous borrowers greasy fingerprints?

 

[steveindenmark]

They were good. Every time I changed car I bought a new manual. Car fixing was a really good social activity. Checking air pressure and fluid levels is all I can manage now. Its a shame. But thanks Haynes, for playing your part.

 

[Blue Hills]

The only one I have ever had is the bike one, which is nowhere near as good as the park book of maintenance.
Am pretty confident that this will carry on despite the internet, which just goes to show how superior the bike is to the car, unless you try to turn the bike into something non user servicable.

 

[Illaveago]

I used to get the genuine manufacturers workshop manuals but they were gradually phased out in favour of Haynes manuals . I have bought them in the past for my Dolomite Sprint , Daimler Double 6 and Vauxhall Vectra but found that the quality of the pictures and content had dropped off .
Will they continue with their other lines like Concorde , Ford GT40, MK1 tank ?

 

[Deleted member 26715]

Surprised that they did not relocate to the virtual world. A Haynes Youtube channel woukd be killer.

They did & that I think was their downfall they got greedy, they offered a subscription service £9.99pm month for a book that would only cost you £20 to start with. It made no sense.

Maybe it was just me, but I was not totally happy with them. You often have 15 pages showing how to remove a single simple bolt and then they would skip over the actual complicated bit where instruction was needed. I found the other technical manuals available much more useful.

Or remove the 4 bolts holding the thingy on & lift off, yeah right, that might work on the brand new car that you wrote the manual from, but after 15 years of crud buildup that didn't work, even using a BFH. I mainly bought them for the wiring diagrams it's still difficult to get wiring diagrams for UK cars unless you can read Russian.

 

[gbb]

Maybe it was just me, but I was not totally happy with them. You often have 15 pages showing how to remove a single simple bolt and then they would skip over the actual complicated bit where instruction was needed. I found the other technical manuals available much more useful.

.There was an element of that tbf. Itd occasionally tell you the screamingly obvious, yet occasionally not tell you something really important. I had a Cavalier with a torn driveshaft boot. Reading the manual I had to strip almost everything off. I was part way in and realised I could just drop off a lower ballpoint (steering I think) and swing the hub back, dropping out the driveshaft. It was a simple solution overlooked by Haynes.
That said, I've had a few over the years, they were (and probably still are) very useful. I suspect its peoples reluctance to get in there, but there are still plenty of jobs you can do. Perhaps they should have abridged the whole process and given people a book that related more to jobs we can reasonably still do.

 

[Chris S]

The early ones were good. They were for specific makes and models and contained exploded line drawings of all the relevant parts. They later ones contained monochrome photographs that had little or no context. Sometimes they weren't even for that particular car.

 

[cosmicbike]

TBH the ones for newer cars are not vastly useful, since so much needs specialist tools or PC's to do. The older ones are great, and those for the Capri Mk1-3 are useful, likewise for the Volvo 240.
The recent one for the VW T5 was not much help, and the internet proved far more valuable. Add that to the fact that cars are a disposable item for many nowadays and I can understand the loss of demand.
Hopefully they keep up the novelty stuff though, their baby manual was funny, and the Spitfire one interesting.

 

[stephec]

I've still got one for a MKII Fiesta, and a MKIII Capri.

Whoever came up with the idea to diversify the way they have done is a clever person, there's always a few of them in The Works bookshop.

 

[MrGrumpy]

Every car I bought would be quickly followed by Haynes purchase !! However I agree , you can get loads of guides and video talk through on YouTube etc. New cars these days are quite reliable really, not many go down the DIY root !! Can recall swapping clutches out doing cylinder heads etc. Had all the torque settings listed the order to tighten. ☹ Sad day indeed taught me loads those books !