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new SoA Service Manual policy

Model Years 2018 to 2023 
31K views 65 replies 31 participants last post by  Offwhite 
#1 ·
I wanted to get the service manual for my new 2018 Crosstrek, so I signed up for 3 days of access on the Subaru STIS site($35 or so).

Once I got in, I found that there was no downloadable service manual for the 2018, only an interactive online manual.

I figured maybe the pdf manual was just not ready yet, so I called SoA Customer Service, and they investigated it for me. I got an email about it today, saying that going forward, Subaru is moving away from downloadable pdf manuals and going to all interactive online manuals.

Kind of sucks if you don't want to pay for continuous access to the site.

Has anyone else seen or heard about this?
 
#2 ·
Some how, I don't doubt that as piracy has been rampant when it comes to electronic service manuals regardless of the manufacturer. The flip side is if they are going to go this way, then they should make the subscription price much more reasonable than what it is now.
 
#3 ·
I would like to have a physical service manual as well. Can you print from the online one and do you have to pay again and again when you want to use the online one ?
If so, that would really be a big disappointment
 
#5 ·
You can print subsections from the online manual. I spent about 6 hours printing as many of them as I thought would be useful to PDF files.

But there was a lot that I didn't print-maybe about half of the information in total. It was just too difficult.

And yes, you would need to pay again if you wanted access again. My 3 days has run out, and I can;t get in any longer.

I have an inquiry in with SoA to see if there is a way to download the entire online manual, and I'll post here when I get their answer.

....ya' know, some people (like me) think it was reasonable for manufacturers to charge money for their service manuals when they had to go to all the expense of printing and shipping them; but that with PDF manuals, they should give them away at no charge...
 
#7 ·
dont mean to necro this thread but it seems the most recent; i just got my new 2018 crosstrek so i'm going to be getting the service manual.

i'm going to try using a tool that is designed to create a mirror of a site and see if i can grab the entirety of the service manual.

if it works i dont mind packaging it into a single PDF with bookmarks and uploading it for anyone who wants a copy.
or creating a offline version of the interactive manual and packaging it into a zip so youd just load the offline files in a browser
 
#30 ·
...and companies have ways of stopping this to...just to avoid this type of thing...dang!
 
#11 ·
ya with how dmca happy many of these manufacturers are and how down right greedy they are: frankly i'm not one to care; and they'd have to find it and the accounts used to get it first.

i'll be scrubbing any account data out of the site dump once i get it downloaded, after that just make sure all the active code works without that data (which it should, since it shouldnt be running anything like database calls or anything like that)
and there are plenty of upload sites that dont care if they get a DMCA C&D or not they'll still host the files.

if subaru really wanted people to not distribute their manuals without paying they should simply charge a per access fee for every time someone wants to download the service manuals; that would still give a small amount of income to cover manual generation costs (even though thats part of the model design process) and people wouldn't care about a $20 or $30 they have to pay once in a while for a manual revision or redownload when they lose the file.
obviously i wont post the link to the file directly so the forum admins dont get blasted with a DMCA but i'll gladly point to another third party site that will have the link to the file (aint copyright and DMCA loopholes grand?)

sorry my little rant is over, tend to get a bit triggered with the stupid greed for greeds sake crap
 
#13 · (Edited)
Good story on how the electronics/computer industry started this repair manual copyright BS

BTW all you need to do is rewrite a few procedures and re-distribute the manual.

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/copyright-law-repair-manuals-circular-economy

Let me make one thing clear: copyrighting repair manuals doesn't protect creative work and it doesn't prevent knock-off artists from copying design. All it does is stop people from fixing their things. It prevents independent repair facilities and shops from having the information they need to repair your stuff at competitive prices. And it prevents refurbishers from having the resources they require to fix products and put them back on the market.
 
#15 ·
Good story on how the electronics/computer industry started this repair manual copyright BS

BTW all you need to do is rewrite a few procedures and re-distribute the manual.

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/copyright-law-repair-manuals-circular-economy

Let me make one thing clear: copyrighting repair manuals doesn't protect creative work and it doesn't prevent knock-off artists from copying design. All it does is stop people from fixing their things. It prevents independent repair facilities and shops from having the information they need to repair your stuff at competitive prices. And it prevents refurbishers from having the resources they require to fix products and put them back on the market.
I don't think anyone is disagreeing with you here... but copyright lawyers always have a different point of view.
 
#16 ·
well that would be great if it let you download it; currently at least the current model year it does not let you download it at all.
what it brings up is the same thing as the techinfo site that toyota has, it is an html document view type of interface that has provisions to let you print off pages within sections rather than the whole manual or even the whole sub-section.
the previous years as i understand it were just a large searchable pdf file; this is what it should be not this 3 day access pass and no real efficient way to copy the info other than printing each and every page
 
#18 ·
I don't think it's fair to blame Subaru for this, it's an industry trend. Printing and distributing paper manuals was a huge overhead. Sending updated PDFs (or having updated sections would take work, too). If I understand it correctly, the techinfo site gives you access to all of the latest documentation when you need it.
 
#32 ·
Even with PDF manuals, I believe that there should be some level of charge by the manufacturers as they still had to put the manual together and as with any document released to the general public (rather than just internal use), there's some level of additional work that is done so that it's fit for public consumption. That additional effort and cost should be reasonably compensated for.

In addition, I can understand why Subaru (or any OEM for that matter) is concerned about copyright as these documents are their product and other publishers should not benefit from Subaru's efforts nor should bits of the document be taken out of context or potentially altered as it might be a safety concern for the public. Service manuals should be available in it's entirety and unaltered.

Having said the above, if the service manual is available to the public, then Subaru should make it more public friendly with additional sections that cover 'generally accepted' Subaru practices to make it easier for new Subaru owners to understand the 'Subaru way'.
 
#33 ·
The "Subaru way" is way different than Toyota. Having printed factory manuals (Toyota) vs a cryptic (to me) access for a limited time that offers little in the way of "how to". Not being able to disable systems when needed (ABS for one) without disabling other needed ones. Now granted I'm an old geezer that is definitely not embracing the direction technology is going. Some of it is very good, others not so much...

artosa
 
#34 ·
For those of you who are interested in a "off-line" service manual:

I used an on-line service where they use your VIN number and have some sort of script that will get all the service information specific to your car from the Subaru tech site. I got a single 8000-page pdf, complete with an index. It includes all the manuals as well as all the technical information (aka service manual). Not as clearly presented as printed old-style Honda service manuals, but pretty good and very useful for a DIY like me.
 
#39 · (Edited)
They are legit - at least they provide the product that they advertise.

From their about Website:
About Us
Who are we?
We are a multinational company with employees all over the world. our head office is in Dubai, UAE.
What exactly do we offer you?

We offer you the exact repair manual, created for your exact car, and we do that, using your VIN car number.

We respect the copyright of the manufacturer, and we make sure that these pdf files can not be multiplied.

The expression "in stock" is imposed by Google. We do not actually have any manual in stock, but we can create any manual requested by the customer.
 
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