[ajchien]

You can also go to the charm.li website. They have a fairly large catalog of factory service manuals for all sorts of car brands, for years earlier than 2012-2013ish for USDM vehicles, all free to view. The info is the same as the honda manuals, organized differently.

link here:

Free Car Service Manuals from Operation CHARM — No strings attached!

Operation CHARM provides completely free repair/service/workshop manuals for over 50,000 models of cars and trucks manufactured 1982-2013. No sign-up or paywall.

charm.li

 

[ajchien]

That's true! I guess I'm always thinking of and writing for CR-V Forum visitors first. For those of us non-mechanics the manual really helps. People like Voteforben may now choose to do some maint. with this PDF access.

the manual is written for mechanics and is the same info that can be found in techinfo.honda.com, alldata, and mitchell1. The difference is that those other websites have the manuals of the newer vehicles, requiring a subscription fee to access.

Also note that pre-2013, Honda published 3 books for each car - a service manual, an electrical troubleshooting manual, and a body repair manual. Nowadays, everything is electronic media.

 

[ajchien]

The bell dings! Now I understand why the seasoned veterans sit back and laugh. One needs to immerse oneself into the abyss and not give up. Life lesson 7,852. Should I ask this question now? Is this 514th post enough? Please don't hold back...

the service manual is an incredible asset to DIY, of all varying skills.

if you’re a beginner in DIY, reading through the relevant part for your problem can help you decide if you have the tools and ability to fix something or if you’re completely in over your head that you need to take it someone else.

if you prefer changing parts on cars, looking at the relevant sections will tell you what parts are involved. It seems that every week on this forum I’ll see someone say something such as “my X doesn’t work, a neighbor says that it could be the Y. I changed Y, and the X still don’t work”. Well, if they had looked at the manual, they could have realized that X and Y are completely unrelated and the neighbor had no clue.

if you want to diagnose, it’s pretty much invaluable, as it tells you how a system is supposed to work as well as how to figure out if it’s not working.