Customer Reviews

Mazda Trucks, 1994-98 (Chilton's Total Car Care Repair Manuals)

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

This "manual" is cheaply printed on poor quality paper, hard to read, and a general waste of money. The "pictures" are low quality newsprint style photos that lack contrast, have poor detail, and are poorly framed (see page 3-41 Fig.153 as an example).

But the pictures are much better than the text and the organization; the manual claims to cover six vehicle models over five model years and fails miserably. The diagrams and text are so poorly organized and labeled that you are never sure which model or year is being talked about or shown. This book reminds me of the Monty Python skit about the foreign phrase books that have really bad translations - both can get you into much more trouble than you should have to put up with!

It's not too terribly hard to use, but it's only a step above your owner's manual.

My favorite part about all these books (CHILTONS, HAYES, doesn't matter, all aftermarket shop manuals) is that when something is really really hard (lets face it, all car maintenance is hard, I'm talking about CRAZY hard here) they say just take it to a shop. Case in point: They don't tell you how to install a windshield, but they will tell you how to drop your transmission. Seriously, everyone should own one of these, even if you take your vehicle to a shop for all its work- if you know what needs to be done, there's less of a chance that mechanics can rip you off: for example, when a mechanic tells you that it's going to take three hours to replace your fuel filters you can tell him to stick it because that only takes about 30 minutes, so the most he should charge you for is an hour of labor, and you knew this because there's only a few steps for instructions in your CHILTONS! They're much more affordable than the shop manuals manufacturers publish and easier to understand, plus if your car ever breaks down on the side of the road and you don't have AAA they can be invaluable for diagnosing a problem and deciding if you can fix your car or not (if you hopefully broke down next to an Autozone or O'Reilys.) CHILTONS: the Prima Strategy guide for your ride.