Why You Should Use a Repair Manual Instead of Winging it on Your Car Repairs

So you have decided that you are going to tackle that nagging repair job this weekend. You did the same job on your previous vehicle, and you are thinking that maybe you will just “wing it” this time without a repair manual. You should think about this carefully, because this decision can have serious implications both for your likelihood of success and for your physical safety.

Even if you know the gist of what you need to do, you can’t take for granted the information that you are not going to have available to you if you wing it. Even small repairs often require exact torque specifications or special tool numbers. If you wing it, you are going to have a sloppy repair job at best, and an unsafe one at worst. Some of the most common areas for DIY repair are also critical to safe driving, such as your brakes, steering, and suspension. If you mess up working without a manual, you can put yourself or your family at risk.

You also can’t take for granted the fact that the procedure is not going to be exactly the same as it was for your previous vehicle, and you may find yourself working on a completely different setup. Common repairs like brake jobs can involve distinctly different systems, for example disk brakes as opposed to drum brakes. You can do a hundred brake jobs on cars with disk brakes, but you will be no closer to having the experience necessary to work on drum brakes without using a repair manual.

Depending on your level of experience, you may only need limited use of a manual. And if you are doing something like replacing an air filter or changing your oil, then by all means, you probably do not need a repair manual. For those who don’t fit either of these scenarios, please tread carefully if you decide to skip the repair manual and “wing it” on your repair job.

The author is a shop owner of twenty years and a representative of the RepairSurge repair manual software.