Before joining Motor Age, I wrote service manuals at Chilton Book Co., and the way these books were written illustrates my point. For example, the editor assigned to write the Ford section would gather all the new Ford manuals and spread them out in his cube (imagine buying every factory book for every model sold in the United States every year). Then he searched through each book for numbers to complete the spec charts. This took several days, and sometimes it took hours just to figure out where a decimal point belonged. With the charts done, he then opened each factory book to a procedure in the Chilton book index, such as heater core R&R, cylinder head R&R, etc. He had to write a procedure that worked for as many models as possible, because there were only so many pages available. The information access battle is still raging. Even though carmakers have agreed to share “everything,” they’ll each have their own Web site, and you will have to learn how to use each of them.When finished with the Ford section, his next assignment might have been Toyota. After weeks of working with one manufacturer’s books, even experienced editors needed several days to relearn how to find things in other books. For instance, in their 1997 books, wheel speed sensor resistance specs for the Ford Explorer are buried in a flowchart in Group 2, Chassis Diagnostics. Toyota buried that spec in a flow chart in the DI Section, which includes diagnostics for engine, transmission, airbag and anything else that communicates with a scan tool. Neither of these manufacturers included wheel speed sensor specs in the Brakes section, but Mitsubishi did, along with all the other brake system specs. However, some of the European makes didn’t even publish that spec that year, because they expected the sensor to be checked only with a scan tool.For almost a century, shops relied on Mitchell, Motor or Chilton books for service information. No one expected these books to include everything, because there simply wasn’t enough room in the book. What you got for your money was a good navigation system that let you find exactly the page you needed quickly. If the information wasn’t there, you knew immediately, without having to search through the rest of the book. Computer databases from Mitchell and ALLDATA have replaced the old thousand-page general service manual, and virtually unlimited space means there’s a lot more information, but they’re still not as complete as factory books. The real value of these products is the navigation system, and after using one of them just a few times, you learn how to find – or not find – what you’re looking for quickly.The information access battle is still raging. Even though carmakers have agreed to share “everything,” they’ll each have their own Web site, so now you’ll have to learn how Ford, GM, Subaru and every other site you visit organizes their information.
And you’ll be on two clocks, yours and theirs. Unless someone creates a single Web site with a universal navigation system that takes you to the right page with just a few mouse clicks, you’ll have to add one more item to the long list of skills needed to be a professional automotive service technician: Information Specialist.
