W124 SERVICE MANUALS ON CD

[John Turner]

Could anybody advise on usefulness of the CD service and repair manuals which regularly appear on e bay. There seems to be one 2 CD set that sell cheap £2-£5 and another 2 CD set that sells at around £30. I assume both are copies anyway! Both are advertised as the ones dealers use, and I suspect both are US. They refer to saloons as sedans and estates as wagons and only cover 3 models of the latter. The more expensive one gives part no lists and sounds considerably more comprehensive in its description of contents, and states that it is not a Mitchell /Haynes/ or other type, suggesting that the other is! Has anyone bought any of these and can they advise on their usefulness? Are they any better than a Haynes manual?
Thanks
John

 

[russmellor@tiscali.co.uk]

CD Manuals

I use the "Rave" CD for MG Rover for my MGF and it's great, can't comment on the Merc one but if it's any good I could do with one for my Dad's W123.

Cheers, Russ.

 

[sunil sood]

i bought a merc 190e w201 cd from e-bay.

as you say it is for the u.s market,but i found it a useful adjunct to the haynes manual .

it arrived in 3 days from order to delivery.

payment was by paypal.

i have the w201 cd for sale as i sold my merc 190e,-so if anyone wants the cd it is up for sale at £15 inclusive of postage.

 

[gregit]

service discs

Hi,
I have a 2 cd set,believeable dealers use,says it covers most of models,but quite difficult to follow or even locate some subjects :cry: no easy index,often can't find subject you read a week before but still good value for a few pounds (copies) 8)

 

[hannahsh]

CD Manuals

I have to confess to having bought a number of these CD manulas for a wide range of cars - which I owned at the time. Generally there a real bargain as you can print off anything you need to keep handy.

But be warned some are almost impossible to install and run (even if like me your an IT bod) and some are literally a car parts list only not a replacement for your haynes manual or owners bible.

YOu cant just simply click on a pick and it opens in say paint shop pro, they often use a specialist adobe style interface and they can be version specific.

But all in all for the sake of a few quid, well worth a try. I need a set for E-class w124 for the wifes E300 I just bought her as it now refuses to start and she has only done about 10 miles in it !! - plugs I guess.

Woman drivers and owners, where would they be without husbands and the AA ??!!

Dont know but I would be a whole lot richer for it

 

[GrahamH]

I've bought the w124 cd of ebay and its ok. Its handy to have as well as a haynes manual.

I would recommend going for the cheapest you can find as they're probably the same CD's. Most are copies - though they do not state this, sometimes they refer to them as back-ups.

If you look at this thread
http://forums.mercedesclub.org.uk/viewtopic.php?t=6858 or the actual url
http://drmemory.org/~dakota/MB/maintenance/ReadMe.html

This is a new viewer for the CD it also contains some extra information.

The W124 CD when you first put it in comes up with an error message saying you need to upgrade to a newer version of IE or Netscape if your using XP, close this and browse to the program directory and look for a file called open.htm or opening.htm - this then runs ok. This is probably true for the other versions for cars of the same age.

regards

Graham

E320 Coupe

 

[inetd]

Most computer based programs are a joke. They are old, never seem to be finished, and are severely lacking. I've purchased 4 different sets over the last few months, and none are worth the plastic to make the CDs.

Somebody on Ebay is selling an old (real old) bootlegged version of Mitchell for $10 US. My use shows it may contain about 5% of the 140 maintenance manual. Forget it.

I found WIS (a German counterpart) on Ebay, again a bootleg. This guys changes his ebay ID every 2-3 weeks, but the product descriptions stay the same. He charges about $80 or more, depending if you do a buy-it-now. Buy at your own risk. WIS is an ok program, but again lacks material and searchability. It's an old Visual Basic program, and the interface is pretty ugly. If it wasn't for MB's own version of the maint CD, this would be the most lacking and difficult to search with of them all. And may still be the ugliest interface.

Then there's the official "Star" MB DVD. MercUS will sell it to your for $190 US. It's legal, and comes on DVD only. It's loaded with copy protection, passwords and other restrictions that were prevelant on PC software 10-15 years ago. The software/license protection renders it unusable. It's basically some, FAR from all - maybe 30% - of the maint manual pages scanned into password protected Adobe pdf's. It's search engine was made with MS Internet Explorer scripting code. It's by far the worst implementation of programming I've ever seen in a software product. I would know, I've been in the business for 25 years. It will hang, fail at startup, ignore searches, is poorly indexed (you'll rarely find anything). If you have the time, about half of the pdf's are not password protected, and can be read directly from the disk. The other half are passworded, and can never be viewed anyway especially since the little search index program is so poorly implemented.

Hope this helps. And yes, I'm still looking for a decent PC maint program for a good price.

 

[Ade]

I think the motto here is 'you get what you pay for'.

 

[John Turner]

Many thanks for all of the above replies. I get the clear impression that these CDs are unofficial and often incomplete copies which fail to run easily and are best avoided! The frustration when something is wrong on the car is enough, let alone having to fight a computer programme for an answer! I will stick with my Haynes Manual, and/or seeking guidance from the experts at my dealership (who I have found extremely good - especially the Parts section), there being no recognised specialist independents in the area (North Wales).
John