Service Manuals ... Bentley vs Electronic vs VW vs Other

[HeyCrutch]

Looking for some education on the various service manuals out there ...

The Bentleys seem to only go through 1999, so all the information for the 24v engine would be missing, correct?

The online e-manuals ... I've seen references to buying 24 hour passes, or potentially subscriptions?

VW tech/service manuals ... I think there are some in-house VW manuals that exist (not sure if harcopy, online, or both), nor whether they are even "available" to non VW techs.


Looking to invest but not sure in which direction to point my intentions.

Toss your reviews and suggestions here. Thanks!
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-2003 EV MV Wk - Forest - 49k
-2002 EV Camper - Ghost - 81k
-2003 EV GLS - Fluffhead - 176k

-1997 EVC - 12vVR6 (SOLD)

[kourt]

For 2000 and later, buy a one-day subscription to erWin online:

https://vw-us.erwin-store.com/erwin/showOrderFlatrate.do

It's $35. In that 1-day period, download and PDF all of the manuals for all the VWs you own. It's legal and the accepted method.

I did this and have all the Eurovan manuals for all years through 2003.

This is the only option available to you for 2000 through 2003 Eurovans.

kourt

[HeyCrutch]

Thanks Kourt.

Registered, paid for the subscription, and then started familiarizing myself with all the files. Decided that would take way too long since there are hundreds, so I just started downloading the PDFs.

Took me about 4 hours to download and organize all the files for the 2002/2003 van, the 1997 van, and my 2019 Golf Alltrack. Followed the same folder hierarchy as the search page.

Still need to download a couple hundred technical bulletins.

Pretty good value for ~$35

Feels like I just started grad school and have a ton of reading to do.
_________________
-2003 EV MV Wk - Forest - 49k
-2002 EV Camper - Ghost - 81k
-2003 EV GLS - Fluffhead - 176k

-1997 EVC - 12vVR6 (SOLD)

[bigfoot_ev]

Way back when, I purchased a Bentley CD and it worked fine...on Windows XP.

Now when I need to look something up I have to start up my XP virtual machine and open the Bentley. This really pisses me off to no end! Plus there are no updates that I can figure out how to get from the arcane (read asinine) Bentley a**holes. Can you tell this pisses me off?

Is it worth getting the one day access downloading the pdfs and burning my Bentley CD? Or, is there really no new information?

[kourt]

There's probably no new information, but it would be worth it (to me) to get rid of an old Windows computer that serves no other purpose.

When I got my van I had a special VW repair CD that was a Windows-only product. Its access code and credentials were tied to the old owner. When I started going through the process of transferring the CD cd and creds to me, VW told me, "we don't support this anymore, so go ahead and download PDFs from erWin."

All roads lead to erWin.

kourt

[borninabus]

any opinions on the 7 volume VW official "corporate service publications" versus the 2 (or 3) volume Bentley manuals?

looking for a paper manual for my 93.
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88 Van WBX, A/T - 13 JSW TDI 6M/T - 2012 Touareg TDI Sport

[mikemtnbike]

I can't compare the two manuals, but "know" you from the vanagon forums so making sure you know- the Eurovan Bentley is NOT as DIY friendly as the vanagon bentley. The information is much more...concise.. and you have to understand the foundations of mechanical operations, be able to read exploded views accurately, to use it with functionality.

It's fine, just not this "wow I can do this myself" resource like the vanagon Bentley.
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1991 Vanagon GL 2.1 AT Westfauxlia. "Frankie" Totaled https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=764510&highlight=carnage
1995 Eurovan Camper "Marzivan"
2020 GTI SE manual

[xEVC]

I recently bought erWin for my 2000 eurovan and downloaded what I thought was all the info.

Reviewing it, I see that I don't seem to have parts diagrams / lists - by which I mean the pictures which show an exploded parts diagram for a module with all the part names and importantly, the part #s.

Is this part of erWin and did I miss it? Or do they live elsewhere?
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2000 Eurovan Camper (Winnebago)
Upgraded with 16" wheels

[kourt]

As far as I know, an index of parts numbers, or exploded diagrams with part numbers, are not part of erWin.

kourt
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2001 Eurovan Winnebago Camper

[kamzcab86]