In order to maintain and repair your vehicle properly, you need to have the car factory repair manual. In some cases you may not have it, however. You might have bought it used, for example, and they did not give you the manual when you bought the car. Alternatively, you may simply have lost the manual. The good news is that it is possible to find the repair manual for you car no matter what operation it is that you need to have done. In order to have access to it you will need to have a connection to the internet, however. If you do, you are in luck. It is not difficult to find the information that you are looking for once you have done it a few times. Even better, you will be able to find this information for free so that you won’t spend any money for the manual or for a mechanic to do the work for you.
There are four basic different kinds of instructional documents that you may need to look for when you are performing maintenance or a repair on your vehicle. These are general manuals, repair manuals, maintenance manuals, and diagnosis descriptions.
Most general manuals are most strongly related to the make of the car. From these you can find information about how to repair the majority of makes that are available on the market. The instructions are presented in a relatively easy to understand step by step process. In order to find this type of information, it is usually possible to do so with a relatively simple internet search. Simply do a search for “free car manuals” in addition to the make, model, and year of your car. In most cases you will be able to find it in one of the first few search results.
In addition to the general manuals, you can also find manuals from secondary sources that can be helpful as well. These are what we mean by repair manuals. This type of information will generally be less closely related to the make and model of your particular car, but it can be used to find information on repairs that are not necessarily discussed in the general manual.
In order to find this type of information you generally would search for information based on the type of repair that is required. In this case you would do a search for “car repair manual” in addition to the type of repair that you are attempting to perform. You can add information about your make, model, and year as well but you will be less likely to find results that way. The downside of instructions provided from these sources is that they will be more broad in nature. On the upside, they are usually presented in more plain English that gives you a deeper understanding of what it is that you are actually doing when you perform the repair. You will have to figure out more of the specific steps on your own, however.
Diagnosis descriptions will tell you find out what is wrong with your car. You can search by make and model but you may have more luck doing a search similar to the repair manual method. To find this type of information, you would do a search for “car diagnosis manual” in addition to the type of problem that you are experiencing. Depending on the type of issue, you might need to provide the make and model as well.
Finally, there are general maintenance manuals available as well. In some cases the type of information that you need to perform maintenance on your car will not be specific to your make and model. If it is you are better off looking for a general manual that is specific to your car. In many cases, however, maintenance for all cars or for a specific brand does not vary much from car to car. To find information on these types of repairs, do a search for “car maintenance manual” plus the type of maintenance. Sometimes you will find specific information if you enter your make and model as well.