Hey. I was wondering if anyone has tried/bought a service manual for your car on eBay. It's one of those CD ones that run for about $20-30. If you have...are they any good? Or am I better off getting the real paper manual somewhere else?

 

I did buy one for my 1998 ES300. It is a bunch of .pdf files. It also comes with the Adobe Acrobat Reader program to install to view the files. I have found it very helpful. It looks like they just copied all the pages out of the Dealer service manual and created .pdf files out of them. I like this format better because 1- I am a computer freak (I have one in my heated garage, I live near Detroit, with a network cable that goes in my house for internet access as well as file sharing) and 2- I always want to have the service manual for every car I have and this is the first one I have found in .pdf format.
It is usefull also to just find out how things are put together. I am new to Lexus and use the pictures provided in the files to figure stuff out.

I would get it.

 

I bought one on Ebay (yes I think it was around $20), and I'm not too happy with it. Unlike arhino's CD, mine is not .pdf files made from the Lexus paper manual. The info's there, but much of it is in general terms, and I can't determine whether it's really Lexus information, or Toyota/Lexus/typical data......

It's good enough for poking around, and reading through, but I'd prefer what he bought rather than what I bought.

Bottom line: All Ebay Lexus manuals on CD are not the same. I, personally, would prefer the hardcopy book, but that's just too expensive for me and my purposes. (I don't plan on tearing my engine down anytime soon.)