Nuts!
I know! Was going to mention this to HYPOCRACY and The Duke when they spoke of collecting manuals for a repair business.
Whenever I stop by an auto parts or thrift store I keep an eye out for the end-consumer Haynes manuals covering makes and models my friends or myself may have - but they don't compare to the in-depth databases those subscriptions provide.
But...YouTube or the internet has saved the day more times than I can recall. It's like a crap shoot but far better than being at the mercy(lessness) of auto repair shops.
I ended up getting the Haynes manual for my 2013 Ram... but never used it. You’re right about the internet. There’s a YouTube video for practically everything.
In the six months I’ve had my P.O.S. Ram (which I love), I’ve had to replace the water pump, the driver’s side CV shaft, one U-joint, and had to weld on a new bracket for the forward fuel tank strap (the tank was trying to fall out due to rust). All through Google AI and YouTube instead of paying $2000 per year for a subscription.
I should also mention that there is a website called Factorymanuals.com or something that sold a 2013 Ram manual for $70... what a waste. It was a 28,000 page .pdf without an index or page numbers. It’s an “internet scrape” and completely useless. Tried to find the water pump section by searching with the .pdf tools for “water” and “pump” but thousands of hits came up and never found the section after checking the first few hundred hits.
Sucks we can’t get the nice detailed physical service manuals any longer. How far we have fallen.