On Date: Thu, 04 Feb 1999, DOUG "Mumbles" GILL said, among other things:
> The dealers will NOT receive automatic shipment of shop manuals
for
> 2000 vehicles. All the service info is on ESI CDs. If a dealer
As someone who until recently was involved in the production of Ford shop
manuals, I can tell you that FoMoCo has gone that way as well -- I think
the '99 Model Year is the first that paper isn't being provided at all
unless the dealer pays for it themselves, and for '98, the dealers got the
initial paper release, but all the updates came on CD-ROM only. The cost
of production is considerably less, and the environmental cost is
mind-bogglingly less, when you consider that each model has on the order of
1000 pages of basic mechanical manual, plus an electrical manual, an
emissions manual, a wiring and vacuum diagram manual, etc. Putting them
all on CD-ROM has greatly simplified distribution, and it's easy to send
out a new set of CD-ROMs each quarter with updates.
As of '98, Ford's CD-ROMs consisted of a master disc, and one each for Cars
and Trucks for each model year going back to about 1993 (like 1999 Car,
1999 Truck, etc.), with a unified Car/Truck disc for 1992. The prior model
years aren't updated much, as you might expect, and the CDs include TSB
updates and such up to their publishing date.
I'm not sure of the cost to Joe Consumer -- the office had a couple sets
handy and I didn't have to buy them. This will change this year as I'll
need to buy a set for my '99 Cobra (production date currently unknown).
Jim Crider
autojim@delphi.com
No, this isn't GM's Delphi Automotive, it's Delphi Internet Services, we
had the name first (1983).
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