Affordable access to factory service manuals
12-06-2023, 04:27 PM
#1
Launching!
Thread Starter
Affordable access to factory service manuals Maybe everybody already knows about this and I just somehow missed it, but this is new to me and it's really cool: ACDelco Technical Delivery System
From there, you can subscribe to online access to all GM service manuals going back to 1996, plus:
Campaigns & Bulletins from 1980 to present
Unit repair manuals from 1997 to present
Owner manuals from 2003 to present
I'm sure you're thinking "yeah, and it's expensive as hell!"
Well, no. Not exactly. For those of us who aren't professional techs, how often do we actually need this stuff? Not that often, really. And guess what? You can get a three-day subscription for $22!
As a bonus: if you don't let your session expire, you can keep using it well beyond three days! I've been using mine for six days and only paid the $22 once. I think all you need to do is keep a browser open and refresh a page at least once every twelve hours. (Although I wouldn't count on them not fixing that bug.
)
Once subscribed, the stuff you get access to is high-quality, nicely organized, fully searchable and browseable, with lots of cross references. Torque specs for every single fastener. Illustrated guides to every repair procedure. Details about every special tool you might want.
The only thing it doesn't have which I wish was there is the parts catalog. I know it exists, because there's a 1000+ page PDF floating around out there, but that document is incredibly low quality. It's readable, but it leaves a lot to be desired. I would love access to the official catalogs! My first guess was that it's not there because most of the parts are discontinued, but it's also not there for my wife's 2018 Regal. Wish I knew where to find those!
From there, you can subscribe to online access to all GM service manuals going back to 1996, plus:
Campaigns & Bulletins from 1980 to present
Unit repair manuals from 1997 to present
Owner manuals from 2003 to present
I'm sure you're thinking "yeah, and it's expensive as hell!"
Well, no. Not exactly. For those of us who aren't professional techs, how often do we actually need this stuff? Not that often, really. And guess what? You can get a three-day subscription for $22!
As a bonus: if you don't let your session expire, you can keep using it well beyond three days! I've been using mine for six days and only paid the $22 once. I think all you need to do is keep a browser open and refresh a page at least once every twelve hours. (Although I wouldn't count on them not fixing that bug.
)Once subscribed, the stuff you get access to is high-quality, nicely organized, fully searchable and browseable, with lots of cross references. Torque specs for every single fastener. Illustrated guides to every repair procedure. Details about every special tool you might want.
The only thing it doesn't have which I wish was there is the parts catalog. I know it exists, because there's a 1000+ page PDF floating around out there, but that document is incredibly low quality. It's readable, but it leaves a lot to be desired. I would love access to the official catalogs! My first guess was that it's not there because most of the parts are discontinued, but it's also not there for my wife's 2018 Regal. Wish I knew where to find those!
12-11-2023, 08:43 AM
#2
There are several online parts catalogs although they differ in design (photos vs. exploded diagrams) and amount of detail. I've found that gmpartsnow.com has a decent catalogue. I also have both the Firebird and Camaro PDF files... the Firebird one is an absolutely terrible scanned document whereas the Camaro one is quite readable, so I use that for anything that is common between the models and only use the Firebird manual for things that are specific to that model. You can usually zoom enough to (barely) read the part numbers.
01-09-2024, 08:32 AM
#4
Launching!
Thread Starter
01-09-2024, 09:28 AM
#6
Launching!
Thread Starter
Yeah, I've seen those. Unfortunately, I have yet to find one that has even half of the parts diagrams that are present in the Camaro PDF. Worse, those sites are about selling parts, and they often omit any part numbers they don't have available for sale.
01-09-2024, 10:09 AM
#7
Launching!
Thread Starter
Or you could make a link…
Operation CHARM: Car repair manuals for everyone.
Pretty cool, great resource!
For comparison: it doesn’t have anything newer than 2013 (in the brands I checked), no parts diagrams (that I could find, and mine lacks those too), and the image quality in the repair procedures is a bit lower than what I linked — but at the same time, it’s free, you can get everything for a car in one download, and it also has stuff for much older cars. The site I linked is GM-specific and only goes back to ‘96, but there are many more brands and I saw as old as ‘82 on yours.
Operation CHARM: Car repair manuals for everyone.
Pretty cool, great resource!
For comparison: it doesn’t have anything newer than 2013 (in the brands I checked), no parts diagrams (that I could find, and mine lacks those too), and the image quality in the repair procedures is a bit lower than what I linked — but at the same time, it’s free, you can get everything for a car in one download, and it also has stuff for much older cars. The site I linked is GM-specific and only goes back to ‘96, but there are many more brands and I saw as old as ‘82 on yours.
Last edited by JakeRobb; 01-09-2024 at 10:33 AM.