Interesting biography.
Being of the age that was liable for National Service, I take an interest in my contemporaries. Haynes was born in March 1938, he was still doing NS in 1965 when he would have been 27! Shome mishtake? Or did he sign on? (Volunteer to be a regular.)
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Looking at the picture the latter, it looks like he got a commission probably some sort short service commission.
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Me too.
The last manual i bought for my car was 5+ years ago and it soon paid for itself.
It is still possible re some DIY on a 12 year old car.
I guess the market for manuals is much reduced due to the increasing complexity of current cars.
The last manual I have ( as a present ) is Men's Cooking.
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>> I guess the market for manuals is much reduced due to the increasing complexity of
>> current cars.
The market for manuals is much reduced due to the availability of better information on the internet
Even with the online version of many manuals, there is still huge competition from specific videos on common jobs.
Progress I guess.
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"The market for manuals is much reduced due to the availability of better information on the internet"
that and a reducing appetite for DIY spannering (and most other DIY in my experience)
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Much easier to have a paper book by your side getting greasy over an expensive tablet or phone.
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I reckon those manuals gave more work to garages in the form of botched diy attempts than they ever lost.
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Not from me, they didn't.
I have in my day tackled huge jobs with no more knowledge than a Haynes manual in front of me.
Many a time a car stayed on the road when I could not possible have afforded to pay someone to repair it.
Though the phrase "Assembly is the reverse of disassembly" still brings feelings of foreboding and tears to my eyes.
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I'm sure you were good at diy but your garage mechanic will tell you many a tale of "cardboard box jobs" that he has sorted at a cost.
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>>>Much easier to have a paper book by your side getting greasy over an expensive tablet or phone.
Agreed... except the information in Haynes reduced massively over the decades and the availability of OE printed workshop manuals has reduced too.
I have a laptop which is only used in the garage and contains diagnostics for my vehicles. Great for viewing YouTube tutorials which in many cases by-pass the obvious and get to the nitty gritty of doing the job. Of course if you see the guy is using his blacked out windows, de-badged and lowered vehicle as an example just assess his real ability with spanners.
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>>.. except the information in Haynes reduced massively over the decades and the availability of OE printed workshop manuals has reduced too.
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For my first car I had both a Haynes and the Ford OE manual so I could see how much was cut & paste.
I was on a learning curve and neither explained what a cold start coil was etc.
I cooked a coil before I eventually found out how it worked.
A later Haynes I had was very poor. Loads of errors, missing pages, duplicated pages, missing labels on images etc.
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How much is a Haynes manual these days, about £20 I guess. Probably on balance still worth having one but the action is mainly on the web these days for maintenance and repair information.
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