[0] https://servlib.com/sony/audio/cmt-ex1-hcd-ex1.html?start=29
I'm not saying it's good, it's just what it is.
When the EDA tools started making the prints fully automatically and all the tables and notes just became automated outputs to PDF... it kinda killed a bit of the artistry that went into the layouts of the prints. I also feel that the care and choosing the fonts / lettering styles / etc. have become eschewed in favor of just putting out whatever the defaults are from current software without care of adjustment. It's why all published schematics these days look alike, and boring by comparison.
The early Walkman manuals are a good example of this:
https://archive.org/details/wm-f15_202004/SONYWM-DD_service_...
The perfect little isometric views of the special isolated components in boxes along the outside, the shading of the traces on the PCB....
Yes. Absolutely.
Sadly, EDA tools like KiCad and Altium (two of the ones I use most often) make absolutely ugly schematics. Just horrible looking stuff. I always thought this had to do with engineers who did not necessarily come up drawing schematics by hand.
In the later-70's to early 80's --and a little beyond-- you could pickup magazines like Byte and Popular Electronics and see beautifully drawn schematics that were well laid-out and easy to understand. Same with data books. I built lots of projects from those magazines back then. Later on, professionally, I developed a schematic drafting style that mimicked the beautiful schematics from those publications.
CAD requires an effort. You can produce great looking schematics. It depends on how you choose to produce your libraries. We make libraries that make great looking schematics. The difference in legibility is, in my opinion, worth the time we spend creating good looking symbols and parts.
My takeaway is that they want their bikes to get serviced at dealers rather than allow people to more easily work on their own bikes.
I should say specific examples are the Ford Territory and the Great Wall Steed (Wingle 6 in the domestic market).
There are, essentially, bootlegs on line, but my understanding is that while before they had a dedicated Window application for their manuals, they're moving to an online only system, and only for dealers.
So, while there are manuals floating around now, who knows how that will go moving forward.
Obviously, this will be a key sticking point in the future with the "right to repair" laws trickling through the state legislatures.
But other manufacturers who do this make the data available to consumers via AllData or similar services. BMW does not, presumably to make more money on service.
You can sometimes find bootlegs of these computers (generally a "tough" Windows laptop with software and connecting cables). They usually don't have the latest and greatest version of the software, but if your car is older/out of warranty it's generally covered. I don't know if they get them from a recycle stream or dealer mechanics sell their old ones or how it works.
My local stealership wants exactly $200/hr for every service. An oil change for my motorcycle is $300, a brake job is $650. Mind you parts for these jobs are in the mid-to-low XX's. It's ALL service fees. Reshimming the engine (once every 15k miles or so) costs a minimum of $1200 going up to $2000 if the engine needs significant adjustment. I've shimmed sportbikes for years and 6-8 hours worth of work is insane. I can do it in a few hours excluding the time to go get beer.
It's borderline theft. "Stealership" is not tongue in cheek. I am seriously considering trading in my motorcycle for cash (even at a loss) and re-buying an old R100GS.
Wow, your dealer is really raking their customers. Mine charges about $200 to check valves on a parallel twin.
I know this is a fixed price because last time I took it in, it was a "bigger" service, where they had to check valve clearances. But apparently something went wrong when they tried to take apart something (I forget the details) so they had to work much longer than expected on it. In the end, I didn't have to pay more than I had expected, taking it in.
Now, all this isn't to say it's cheap. I was horrified with the prices: it often costs more than my Mercedes' service at a Mercedes dealership.
(Old) Ducatis are also a pain with the desmodromic valves (i.e. springless valves). Some of their valves have 0,0 clearance and the mechanic needs to hone down shims to an exact fit. Also the reshimming needs to be redone on older Ducs after only a few thousand kilometers/miles, or annually.
In contrast, BMWs older air/oilcooled boxer engines are a joy to service, easiest accessability (cylinder heads stick out sideways), only 3 tools needed for adjusting valve clearances (two types of Torx/allen keys and a feeler gauge set), 20mins of work or less depending on your routine.
Ugh, pulling and especially re-inserting the camshaft shouldnt be done in a hurry. At least from my experience with the V-Strom's V-engine. Needs to be cooled down and insertion of the camshaft needs proper care (no dinging of the bearing shells) and one must make sure to not skip a tooth at the geartrain/chain.
Even the oil change was a pain. I had to quite literally crush the dealer oil filter and break it off in pieces with a pipe wrench because it was shaped in such a way you needed a special tool to get a grip on it. I called the dealer, the tool was $180 and would take 3 weeks to ship. It only worked with Triumph brand oil filters (probably white labeled semi-custom K&N's) and they wanted $60 for a filter (vs. $14 for a K&N at the local bike parts store).
Even my best universal clamps + duct tape + sandpaper couldn't hold a grip on it. Several trips to the local auto parts store trading wrenches back and forth until I said fuck it and went to Home Depot. Lucky for me a K&N oil filter fit exactly (dummies still used a standard thread for the oil filter port)...otherwise that would've been somewhat hard to explain.
I was considering triumph as my first bike but after reading this its a hard pass.
To your knowledge are there any brands known for being DIY friendly on current models (read being able to provide/sell offline service manuals)?
So what is “a few hours”?
Yes, but it is not my job. I would estimate my tool's at around $5000 or so. Collected over a little under 2 decades of riding.
> Do you have to maintain a commercial brick and mortar
No. But a Japanese bike shop has the same tools and brains as the stealership and charges half as much.
It's well known dealers upcharge for everything. If you don't believe me, find the best 3rd party shop in town and simply compare hourly rates. You may even ask them to itemize a modestly challenging job (CV boots for a car, maybe) that would need a skyjack. I would bet dollars to donuts the dealer price is 1.5x-2x more.
"Special" motorcycles (e.g. euro motorcycles in America) are NOTORIOUS for absurd dealer upcharges. It wasn't until ECUs started becoming smart that this was a problem. I could service a 90s-0x's BMW, for example, for pennies on the dollar to BMW's specification in my own garage. This is why Right To Repair is so important. Car dealers are the tip of the spear in the fight against it because they lose quite literally millions because of people like me. It's one of the reasons I will never own an EV as long as I live. They are (especially Tesla's) money printers on 4 wheels for the dealer.
My Triumph, for example, has no fundamental reason I need to plug in and tell the ECU I bled my ABS. No reason AT ALL. They do this because if you do the work yourself they can still charge you an hour (~200 dollars) to plug their tool in, re-enable your ABS, and give you a finger wag about doing work yourself. This is the John Deere-ization of consumer vehicles. This isn't unique to Triumph. Many consumer brand cars have the same problems. They even build in anti-tampers (such as the oil filter I had to literally break into pieces to remove). Modern vehicles are hostile to the consumer. The auto lobbies would tell you this is because the "advanced technology" but in reality it's used exactly like John Deere does. That is, to screw the consumer out of every single penny for even the most modest of trivialities.
BMW motorcycle data is not available at all to consumers anymore, only certified techs.
Suzuki doesn't publish data, but Clymer usually fills the gap.
By contrast, Honda will still sell you some really great dead tree manuals on their motorcycles.
As far as I know they keep it as an interactive website so that PDFs are hard to make.
I haven’t found a good copy yet but it’s also possible that I’m just not as good at searching for pirated content as back in the old torrenting days (or perhaps just less motivated)
Triumph in particular is notorious for this. For most bikes made beyond 2018 or so there are nearly no 3rd party manuals available. You have to pay, quite literally by the page or by the hour, to view the manuals on their website.
For older bikes its often easier. Clymer's has a substantial library that are often better than even the dealer mechanic book. I'm the mechanic among my group of friends and newer bikes are exceedingly difficult to not only work on, but also find proper manuals for.
It's not a PDF you can just flip through, it's software.
You have to run it in a windows XP VM, following a very specific set of installation instructions. Getting locked out for no reason is very common (so you just boot a backup of the VM).
Not for the faint of heart.
They are based on the official tech manuals and only cover the stuff that is within reason of a home or small shop mechanic, and don't require you to have manufacturer specific tools in most cases.