Date:         Tue, 7 Jul 1998 16:33:52 -0400
Reply-To:     John Anderson <janderson@IOLINC.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <Vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         John Anderson <janderson@IOLINC.NET>
Subject:      Re: Haynes Manual
Comments: To: Kelly Bauman <bauman@ICAN.NET>, vanagon@vanagon.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

>>BUT, and my opinions only here, this is the most worthless POS Haynes
manual
>>I've ever seen in my life, totally horrid and most definitely worthless.
>>Even as a supplemental piece of reading it is worthless, you won't
>>learn one thing you wouldn't from the Bentley, .....
>
>I respect John's opinion about the Haynes book, but for some of us the
>Bentley is cryptic, lacks description and assumes a wealth of prior
>automotive repair knowledge.  The Haynes on the other hand is very user
>friendly and caters to a more novice mechanic.  I have used both and much
>prefer the Haynes.
>


I will rephrase, Kelly is right in some respect, the Haynes does at least
still deal with repairs in a text oriented sensible stepwise manner, like I
said I feel the Bentley Vanagon is the second worst Bentley ever made only
to the Corrado book, with the Quantum manual being in there close.  But it
plain lacks information, lots of information, got a syncro, forget it, got
an auto tranny, forget it, got A/C, forget it, and more.  The info provided
is done in the fair Haynes style, but there is too little and much too much
take it to the dealer, or find the special tool type stuff.  The engine
rebuild section is laughable compared to earlier Haynes offerings.  If you
need to do more complex repairs you will need the Bentley eventuall and at
the excellent price from the Bus Depot (or others) might as well pick it up
now and start learning how to figure out a cryptic series of pictures to
perform a repair.

I guess my real point is I had high hopes for this book from previous
experience with the T4 van books, Haynes let us down (I feel) on this one,
but for basic repairs, brakes, simple mechanical systems, and carbs :-) it
will suffice.

And why do I keep having to wash things with wax???? (OK cheap)

John
janderson@iolinc.net