It's not looking good for 2015 Fit service manuals. Checking with Helm, 2012 was the last year they offered a Fit service manual, for $150. That's a lot to spend for someone who has a 2015, hoping there are similarities. Maybe there will be one later on, but if they didn't have one for 2012 - 2014, it seems unlikely.

The alternative is to pay $350 for one year of online access - not very practical. Hopefully, Haynes will have something. I looked just now, and they have nothing for any year Fit.

Helm Incorporated: Product Search Engine

I always got manuals with my cars, and it made it so much easier taking things apart and making repairs. Obviously, these manuals exist, since Honda uses them. Could it be that they want us to bring our cars to them for service and repair? What a shocking idea!

 

Service manuals are super invaluable, especially if one were to troubleshoot or modify the electrical system, such as splicing in heated mirrors from an EX-L model onto an EX.

 

I agree ... the $350 seems a bit too much for the one year of online access...

 

Is there any way that you can download or copy the service manual from the online subscription? Even screenshots saved as PDFs and recompiled? (This may seems like an obvious no, but where there's a will to pirate something, there is usually a way).

In all, I'm bummed about this news. I'm planning on keeping this car until its a pile of rust, and a service manual would be extremely useful.

 

One could.... It would be a pain though due to the way the information is arranged online. They actually don't make it hard to download individual sections, procedures, etc, but doing it in bulk would be difficult (and I think technically against the TOS).

 

Where can we download individual sections? I posted some links to instructions for installing accessories, and that included directions for removing interior pieces. What about the rest of the car?

 

I would like to get a service manual for my Fit when I buy it. I don't care if the manual is paper or digital. I have found a service manual very helpful when I did service to all my previous cars and trucks. I would not want to buy an annual subscription. Are there really no other choices?

 

Unfortunately, no. I've had shop manuals for my cars for decades, but Honda stopped offering them for the Fit a few years ago. Now it's trial and error.

 

I've had a service manual for every car I've owned except this one, and, no, the manual for the GE isn't a lot of help for the GK (I have the GE manual).

I can see this will be an expensive problem going forward. $350 for the privilege of viewing the service manual online for a year is a non-starter for me, so I don't know what I'm going to do yet.

Had I known there was never going to be a hard copy service manual available, I might not have bought the car. This will be a consideration for future auto purchases, you can bet. Are you listening, Honda?

 

Read this: Automakers to gearheads: Stop repairing cars

So, you will not get manuals. Parts are going to become harder to acquire.
Shop time will get to be much, much more expensive.
Homeland Security will soon have a Wrench Patrol that will enter your garage,
without a warrant, take your car, your tools, the pizza/beer. You will
be sent to some hidden Yugo factory for rendition.

Remember, your FIT is reporting EVERYTHING that you do to Honda, NSA,
and Google.

Be careful out there.

Youtube has vids on almost everything, it is like a multimedia manual.

 

When I bought my last new car I found the manuals on-line. I downloaded the lot of them and, being that I had the facilities, printed them out. They make up a set of books that took up a foot of shelf space.

In the decade that they have been sitting on my shelf, I've looked at them occasionally, but when it comes time to actually take something apart I've found more useful information by doing a web search. Someone has either written a tutorial or made a video that shows how to do the procedure on a real production car with ordinary tools. The web has become the modern-day version of John Muir's "How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive" manual!

 

They stopped offering the manuals in print form. They are all digital now. Likely through some sort of dealer online portal. After so long some 3rd party company like Haynes will offer the info in their own version. It goes way deeper than the issue of DRM for example. Ease of service manuals for newer cars means it erodes away the business to dealers and other independent shops. Sooner or later someone who has access to these manuals and can get away doing so without getting caught will make it available to public eyes. The harder someone tries to restrict information, the more elaborate and creative ways people figure how to make it known.

 

The cry of the early Internet days -- Information Wants to Be Free!

 

YESSIR! Call me a pessimist, and an anarchist, but I find it hilarious that the manufacturer/dealer tries to restrict any flow of information on how to service "MY" car. I bought the thing, I should have all documentation on how to service it in the manner as I see that fits my wallet. Hell if I had access to it I'd be an asshole, go under an assumed SN, upload it somewhere public then they have no way to track it. Watermarks be damned, you can remove those with a few tricks!

I mean the warranties clearly state that any service done to the car not authorized by Honda, while it won't automatically disqualify the claim, if the damage is found to be caused by said service, then Honda will deny the warranty claim.

I'd say, let the service manuals be public and let Darwinism run its course. Thats why we have insurance, personal injury lawyers, and cops to enforce the laws of the road.

 

When I bought a Cube in 2009, I thought I'd be keeping it forever, so I paid over $100 for the service manual on CD. Shortly after, the Cube forum had it posed online.

The first manual Haynes made was based on the disassembly of a friend's Austin Healey Sprite. Since dealers don't want us working on our own cars, they will continue to make that more difficult.

 

That proves my point. Why spend the money when the internet robin hoods of the world "share" the spoils?!

 

Yes! At least let me see what I'm up against, so I can decide whether to do it myself or take it someplace else. Sadly, this seems to be the way of things. Soon, I'm sure the government will decide we're "not qualified" to work on our own cars, and will be prohibited from doing so by law.

Still, I hate to be forced to seek an "illegal" copy of the service manual. I'd gladly buy one, but I'll be damned if I'm going to pay $350 to RENT it!

Unfortunately, the only thing that will change Honda's mind about this is if people refuse to buy their products without access to service manuals, and I don't see that happening.

 

It is interesting how different manufacturers handle manual access. Some will allow temporary access to their manuals for a relatively small fee. Others make it so prohibitive that it virtually guarantees piracy.

At the same time, once you get access to the manuals, are they really useful? Most assume high levels of prior knowledge on the part of the reader and possession of a myriad of special tools. The old days of manuals written to be understood by Earl in Podunk are gone. If you don't have a full compliment of dealership service tools and computers the factory manuals will be much less useful than you think.

 

> the factory manuals will be much less useful than you think...


I benefit most by the exploded view diagrams that help me take my car apart and put it back together. There has been enough information in the Toyota and Dodge manuals to get me started on most projects. I keep cars long enough that the manuals pay for themselves.

 

I've found them useful for taking the interior apart. They're also good for specifications. Of course, if you are going to do major engine work, a manual is essential.

If 350 of us chipped in $1.00, someone could rent the manual and copy it, maybe - although it may not be possible to keep any info from that $350 online manual.