Anyone have experience with downloadable service manuals

I usually use the Toyotas TechStream site.

https://techinfo.toyota.com/ you can download articles for offline viewing

 

I do not know...this website looks kinda shady to me. I've used the TIS mentioned above a couple of times. Not bad at $15 for 48 hours of access. And you can download as much as you can stand. Only hassle is that some procedures are difficult to locate because there's so much info there.

If you do use RepairSurge, please report your findings here. Good luck.

 

There's pdfs of the toyota repair manual floating around. Downside is its a static document, some stuff might be superseded. It's worthwhile to DL, but not the best manual I've seen, by far.

I used to buy the (paper) Honda manuals, they're typically around $100, and up to 2" thick. Nicely written and pretty well organized. On the other hand, the Toyo book is 4 volumes, around $250 EACH.

 

Worth pointing out that the printed Toyota manuals you can buy as books and the versions you can view/download at techinfo.toyota.com are the same content (I suppose if they find errata after publication they can update the ones online, but otherwise it's just your preference whether you like the electronic or bound paper form). You get other useful stuff at techinfo though, like all the fulltext technical service bulletins. And if you balk at the price of the printed ones, the techinfo pricing is a lot more attractive.

I probably wouldn't bother with a download from some non-Toyota site, even if it really is a scan or download of the real manuals. I'm willing to have my money for that go to Toyota and know what I'm getting.

My opinion of Toyota's manuals might be better than Mendel's - I think they're quite good. I recommend flipping through the whole set quickly to know what's where: there are the obvious diagnostic and repair volumes, but also the electrical wiring diagram manual, which has a lot more useful stuff in it than you might think, like a section of nothing but illustrations to identify all the connectors in the car and where they're located and what they're for, and their part numbers should you need to replace them. But a very important one is called the New Car Features Manual, and it actually tells you how the car works, what the different systems are, how they do what they do, and why. Mostly the diagnostic and repair volumes just assume you know that stuff, so the NCFM makes up your basic, foundational knowledge to use the others.

-Chap

 

I use Alldatadiy. It seems to be the manufacturer repair manual in most cases. I know on my old Acadia it was. When I subscribed for my Prius to do the brake actuator replacement, it had step by step guidelines, including all the necessary steps in TechStream, and even the menus you need to open to get to the option. If it's not Toyota's, it's the best non-manufacturer manuals I have ever seen. Reasonably priced as well.