Factorymanuals.net.....If used, what have been your experiences?

SoCal Angler · May 24

Since there does not appear to be many affordable options for complete service manuals, I found this on another forum. It appears the company is in Bulgaria.

FACTORY MANUALS

Car Mihail No 1
2500 Kyustendil
Bulgaria

https://factorymanuals.net/products/2023-gmc-sierra-2500-hd-3500-hd-4wd-service-and-repair-manual

For those of you that have purchased, can you share your experiences with using it, i.e., user friendliness, correct/official GM specs, procedures, etc.

Thanks!

bruceb58 · May 25

I just bought my service manual from them. The only downside is they came in 4 parts so a little harder to search for things. I may take a snapshot of the collapsed index to help in the future

BCGM · May 27

Buying a Factory Manual for a North American manufactured truck from Bulgaria . Is that not a bit odd ? Can you not buy one from GM ? Is it not in Parts list ? Sorry I have no idea how to obtain a factory manual

sno1 · May 27

1 hour ago, BCGM said:

Buying a Factory Manual for a North American manufactured truck from Bulgaria . Is that not a bit odd ? Can you not buy one from GM ? Is it not in Parts list ? Sorry I have no idea how to obtain a factory manual

You can access the GM service manual online for a fee. $22 for three days. This is what I intend to do (after I get my truck)

Here's a link; https://www.gmparts.com/technical-resources/service-repair-manuals

BCGM · May 27

1 hour ago, sno1 said:

You can access the GM service manual online for a fee. $22 for three days. This is what I intend to do (after I get my truck)

Here's a link; https://www.gmparts.com/technical-resources/service-repair-manuals

Thank You for posting that Sno1

bruceb58 · June 2

On 5/26/2024 at 5:29 PM, BCGM said:

Buying a Factory Manual for a North American manufactured truck from Bulgaria . Is that not a bit odd ? Can you not buy one from GM ? Is it not in Parts list ? Sorry I have no idea how to obtain a factory manual

Not odd at all. Many times manuals are produced in other countries. A good portion of my circuit design team was in Romania.

The Forscan software that Ford uses was developed by a Russian software guy.

BCGM · June 2

12 hours ago, bruceb58 said:

Not odd at all. Many times manuals are produced in other countries. A good portion of my circuit design team was in Romania.

The Forscan software that Ford uses was developed by a Russian software guy.

Interesting !

sweetbreeze · September 16

Do not buy from factorymanuals.net! They are a total scam! They fake all the reviews out there which is how they got me. These guys are a joke. They have this totally outdated system and want you to install all this software on to your computer and all this complex and invasive computer changes like changing cpu configuration settings and it still doesn't work. Guessing all they do everyday is deal with people asking for refunds and giving the same response.. "you have the software and for all we know you are using it and still want your money back.." Total crap. People have better things to do than to try to scam some poor shlubs on a 35$ refund. Apparently these guys don't have actual jobs and are sitting around scamming people for a living. Not sure how to take em down cause all their sites are full of fake reviews but someone needs to stop these dopes.

bruceb58 · September 17

9 hours ago, sweetbreeze said:

Do not buy from factorymanuals.net! They are a total scam! They fake all the reviews out there which is how they got me. These guys are a joke. They have this totally outdated system and want you to install all this software on to your computer and all this complex and invasive computer changes like changing cpu configuration settings and it still doesn't work. Guessing all they do everyday is deal with people asking for refunds and giving the same response.. "you have the software and for all we know you are using it and still want your money back.." Total crap. People have better things to do than to try to scam some poor shlubs on a 35$ refund. Apparently these guys don't have actual jobs and are sitting around scamming people for a living. Not sure how to take em down cause all their sites are full of fake reviews but someone needs to stop these dopes.

They send you links to a PDF file...that's it!!! You have no idea what you are talking about.

ssgballistics · September 17

I purchased a service manual for my truck from them. As a couple of others have posted, the manual is downloaded in 4 parts as a pdf. It is a lot of information, approximately 50k pages. Took me some time to figure out how to use the manuals efficiently. It covers everything on your truck. I’ll probably purchase from them again.

bruceb58 · September 17

3 hours ago, ssgballistics said:

I purchased a service manual for my truck from them. As a couple of others have posted, the manual is downloaded in 4 parts as a pdf. It is a lot of information, approximately 50k pages. Took me some time to figure out how to use the manuals efficiently. It covers everything on your truck. I’ll probably purchase from them again.

You can have them send you version in one PDF which is far easier to use in my opinion. You just need a PDF viewer that can handle such a large file.

Kasanti · October 18

EDIT: Silly me, my Acrobat Reader came up with the bookmarks not selected. Turns out if I select them then I get a reasonable table of contents with major and minor headings.

That helps a great deal. The other issues remain, but I'm a good deal happier now that I found that. Happy enough that I might even buy the one for my truck...

Original post:

I ordered their 2018-2021-Honda-Clarity-Plug-In-Service-Manual.pdf.

While appearing to contain actual OEM service information, the PDF is nearly unusable:

1. There is no table of contents or index.
2. The original internal document links are removed.
3. Many original internal document links are completely missing (one example is the DTC Troubleshooting Index).
3. Some original internal document links appear to have been replaced by periodically inserted pages throughout the document.
4. The inserted links (3., above) sometimes point to another link on another inserted page, not the final target.
5. The inserted link pages (3., above) change the original page numbering so that any page references are no longer correct.

All of this makes the manual nearly impossible to navigate in a reasonable amount of time. One can never be certain they have found all the available information they need.

Sincerely,
Brandon Mayfield

Edited October 18 by Kasanti

Epsilon Plus · October 20

On 5/26/2024 at 6:46 PM, sno1 said:

You can access the GM service manual online for a fee. $22 for three days. This is what I intend to do (after I get my truck)

Here's a link; https://www.gmparts.com/technical-resources/service-repair-manuals

This is the route I went when doing my suspension swap. Once you are in there, go darn near everywhere and print everything to PDF. Takes a while, but the info and highlighted graphics step by step are gold and direct from GM.

wrborg · Saturday at 09:11 PM

I don't know what all this fuss is about, I have purchased the manual (Toyota, not GM) from factorymanuals.net.

Yes, it took some downloads and installation time, but it works fine. My review wasn't altered. The same manual (ALLDATA) required monthly subscription. There's always a choice.