Best repair manual

[texadelphia]

What is the general recommendation for a repair manual? I'm used to Bentley from my VW days but I wasn't sure if there was a better one out there.

[Der Konig]

I use bentley and alldatadiy.com, honestly I prefer the alldatadiy subscription. Fair price and easy to navigate.

[Jay-Bee]

Between my Bible and the DIY section, literally everything on this platform is covered. Can be found on amazon or ebay for about 100 bucks.

[EvolutionArmory]

Don’t forget about erwin. You can buy day passes if you don’t want to subscribe.

[deusilan]

Bentley hardcover manual, not the DVD.
As a backup, I goto https://workshop-manuals.com/audi/a4...ring_diagrams/

[Spike00513]

ELSAwin + ETKA

[canadianA4B7]

Bentley book for me. There’s also Haynes manuals out there I’ve used for a number of other autos I’ve owned amazon for $29.99 might be a good investment. Not exactly sure on the in depth details but I’ve found Haynes manuals very useful in the past. 1 other option I know is taking the actual book into a store like Staples and they actually copy the entire book and make a duplicate of it. Cost depends on number of pages I believe last I got quoted for the Bentley duplicate was about $70 -$100 cdn. It’s complete cover to cover copy.

If your looking for some info from the bentley book let us know what your looking for I can snap pics of pages and send that way too.

[TWiST]

I recently found a VMWare image running windows 7 with Elsawin and ETKA and it is pretty amazing.

[EvolutionArmory]

I recently found a VMWare image running windows 7 with Elsawin and ETKA and it is pretty amazing.

I downloaded that torrent and downloaded Oracle virtual box and cant get the files to unzip. Any guidance you can offer would be rewarded with PayPal 😀😀

[jason96r]

I bought a hard copy Haynes manual for $2 last weekend at Advance Auto parts. Some decent stuff in there. Compared to the stasis turbo install PDF some torque specs were slightly different in Haynes manual. Off by 2-4 ft/lb so not sure who's right I would guess Stasis. I wanted a wiring diagram for engine grounds. I think that's hard to get info. Did have one for starting system though so that's nice. Lots of general car info too that works for all cars. Haynes is starting to go digital that version is $20 something

[TWiST]

I downloaded that torrent and downloaded Oracle virtual box and cant get the files to unzip. Any guidance you can offer would be rewarded with PayPal 😀😀

So I am using VMWare workstation 14, but I also read it should work with the vmware player or whatever it is, unsure if it is compatible with Oracle without any kind of conversion. I also am running 2 different VMWare images, the one I got most recently (Jan 2019 creation date) has a working Etka 8.1 which is great, but the Elsawin 6 it comes with is only in German, then the other older image I have has Elsawin in English, but the Etka on it will not load lol.

I am trying to take the newest English Audi data files from the older image and overwrite them on the newer one (I believe its 02/2017 was the last English leak) but I have not gotten that all squared away yet. Both of the vmware images are based on Windows 7 and have everything preinstalled and ready to go. The newer one I got had everything in German, I was able to switch windows and etka over to english but it only has the german data for Elsa, I also installed the CutePDF writer into both of them, so I am able to print out to a PDF and just copy it out of the VM to my regular Win 10 desktop or to my tablet / laptop for when I am down working on the car.


What problems are you having and which files do you have? The only major change I had to make was edit the VMX file and change one of the devices to false as it was having trouble importing / loading otherwise. I work in IT for a living so lucky for me I have a lot of experience with this sort of stuff, proved very helpful in getting this all going. Let me know whatever you are having issues with and I will see what I can do!

[kringtan]

Bentley manuals are great, especially for VWs, but depending on your car, you might want to check out some other options. For newer vehicles, I've been using the manuals from downloadworkshopmanuals.com. They offer pretty detailed car repair manual download guides similar to Bentley, but you can often find specific downloads tailored for your exact make and model. Worth looking into if you're comfortable with digital manuals. They’re not as polished as Bentley, but they get the job done.