Wow! Glad I didn't sign up.

 

I have no idea what is your agenda, but defending Honda from your part is leaning on the wrong tree.

To start, we used to have a 1999 Honda Accord that showed the warning engine light right after the first year with 13,000 miles. We took the car to the dealer for checking. The dealer reset the light. And, of course, they said that they can't find anything wrong with the car. After a month the warning engine light showed up again. The dealer reset the light and gave the same explanation.

This became a vicious circle for the next months, and right before the warranty expired I told the service manager that I will sue Honda because we received a defective vehicle, and I had lots of invoices proving that the car engine light in the dash went off several times and no one knew what the problem was.

The manager asked me to bring the car for a deeper inspection. That day they found out that the O2 sensor was bad and they replaced it for free because the vehicle was still under warranty.

So, tell me about taking the car to the dealer as the best bet. Get out of here.

This is incredibly infantile from your part. I think you have messed up cars by lots having yourself pretending to know everything from different brands and models.

Let me give you an example.

The most common procedure to flush the steering system fluid is to remove one hose (coming from the pump) and start the car and move the steering wheel from one side to another. But, you just can't do the same if your vehicle is a certain Hyundai model. The service manual of some Hyundai require to disconnect the electrical hardness to the spark plugs and crank the car while moving the steering wheel. It is a "warning note" saying not to start the car.

If you don't have at hand the service manual for these models from Hyundai, you probably will end messing up the vehicle. In order "to do things right" you must follow the service manual instructions. OK? Get it? Comprende?

The attorneys do not guess about laws but they must update their information day by day because laws change or additions are made, or etc. The same as well, doctors renew the technics, information about new medicines, etc. Workers in general, including mechanics get training or use the service manuals of different vehicles to be sure that they will do it right, because new models require of different ways of repairing, different order to disassemble parts, etc.

I don't know what cars have you been reparing for 40 years, perhaps old oil burners called "classics" with no air conditioning and side signal lights... but today, when you buy a new car, before doing maintenance -like flushing steering wheel fluid- do nolt assume, do not give for granted that you know the new car's maintenance procedure... get informed before you cause a damage to the vehicle, and before disassembling parts for nothing, and guessing where the bolts are located, and adsjusting the bolts at your will instead of following the technical information...

 

I think you got it wrong. The link given by you says the following:

"ServiceExpress is American Honda and Honda Canada's service repair information website for independent repair shops and vehicle owners. This information covers all Honda and Acura vehicles from 1990 to current.

Subscriptions:

• 1 Day - $10.00 USD
• 30 Days - $50.00 USD
• 365 Days - $350.00 USD"

 

Okay, I yield, you clearly have all the answers and anybody who disagrees with you really needs to get a grip.

 

I said the site was geared toward shops. The reason I said this was an owner would have to pay the same fee for 1 car as a shop pays for all cars. I have subscribed for 30 days. I spent an entire snow day printing procedures to PDF files to build me a personal service manual. It is a painstaking process and you have to think of every procedure you could possibly need to look at. For example if you look up valve adjustment it will have a single blue section link like "remove cylinder head cover" and you must go into and print that also. Going through and capturing the PXXX codes has been the most painstaking but I refuse to not have access to this data for my new car since I made a $22K commitment to Honda for 10 years. I use a program called cutepdf that acts like a printer and you can print to a file name. I created sub directories for Engine, steering, cooling, suspension etc to put the files in. Not a service manual but I am happy with my progress so far.

Edit: one other thing. ServiceExpress only support IE in a 32 bit version not 64 as most computer are now days. Firefox will not run it either because I tried. I had to establish a windows XP virtual machine with IE in a 32 bit version to run the software. When I first logged on the system would error out. I called them and they confirm they had system problems and would call me back when the system was online. My caller ID said "ADP" when they returned my call. Associated Data Processing must be handling this for Honda. If you do not like Honda's decision to not offer a printed or electronic version of service manuals for 2013 and up, please tell them so. I certainly have.

 

If you launch Internet Explorer by clicking on the following executable, you will run IE in 32 bit mode, even if you're on a 64 bit version of Windows:

• C:\Program Files (x86)\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe

 

Thank you. I did not know that about IE under a 64 bit machine. I had the virtual machine setup anyway so I ran it that way. Good information to know. I will try that on my laptop tonight.

 

Hope this is not illegal, and I don't think so because you have made it by yourself collecting information.

If the model and year you have pulled the information is Honda Accord 2013, when you finish your "do it yourself manual", I gladly pay you for the copy the same price of the manual sold from former years, plus shipping. Put your price, you worked hard for your own manual and I will recognize your work.

 

Please don't play being the victim. Your position was that no service manual was needed for your 40 years of experience repairing cars. I pointed that such situation might have worked for you, but that for me -and many others- checking the recommended factory service procedure is a must before messing up with the car. That's all.

 

If the salesman would have said I will sell you this car for the best price available vs. Nissan, Ford and others but you will never have a printed service manual I would have walked off the lot and passed on buying the car. Unfortunately I bought the car not knowing about Honda's 2013 and up change for FSM. Having a manual is that important to me. Even if the car would never break down in 10 years I will own it I still use the manual for maintenance and just general information like the where are all the clips on the rear deck or door panels when I am changing the pitiful LX speakers etc. I ask the technical support of techinfo.honda.com if I could print a full manual for "my use" before subscribing and they first said yes. Then 2 hours later they re-emailed me and told me I would have to go into each topic and print each thing to have a manual. They never said that was not legal for again "my use". What I am doing is not illegal as long as I use it for my personal use. If I sold anyone a copy or even gave it away I think that would be illegal and breaking copyright laws. That I will not risk. If has been worth it for me to do this labor to have the manual. I know in 30 days I may not have all of it printed to PDF files but I will capture most of it. I love my Accord but I would not have kept the car if I could not have had the factory service manual for it. That is how important it is to me and everyone is welcome to jump all over that and tell me how short sighted that is but that is the way I own a car, period.