996 Repair Manual

[ivass]

Any of you gus know where to get the repair manuals for a 1999 Carrera 4? I have been looking at eBay, Amazon, a bunch of forums, and nothing. Please let me know.

[JimPDX]

..

Edited June 15, 2005 by JimPDX

[ar38070]

Try here:

http://www.workshopmanuals.co.uk/

[ivass]

Try here:

http://www.workshopmanuals.co.uk/

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thanks a lot

[WolfgangK]

Hmmm, do I understand this right: you can download the full manuals (618MB) or get a CD for just 20 bucks?

I thought the manuals are very expensive....

Did somebody try this? Is this really the full set of Workshop Manuals? This sounds too good to be true.

Regards

Wolfgang

[Kim]

Did somebody try this? Is this really the full set of Workshop Manuals? This sounds too good to be true.

Regards

Wolfgang

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yes. They're all there in .pdf files. Not clearly labeled and not in any clear order that I can devine.

Its only 20 bucks, but their customer service stinks. At least 2 of the files on my disk were corrupted and unable to be opened and/or contained gibberish on some pages. When I inquired, they simply replied, "that's the way our originals are". No refund.

By the way, there is a full factory set on Ebay right now in the $1500 range.

Kim

[Loren]

I purchased and downloaded a copy of the 996 manual from www.workshopmanuals.co.uk. I compared them against my factory paper version (which includes all of the current supplements).

The downloaded manual appears to be a 1999-2000 vintage and the newest supplement (that I could find) it has is 39 (current supplements in my manual are 95). That means that the manual is only current through early MY2000. The wiring diagrams confirm that also as they only go through 1999.

I did not have any problems opening the PDF files but every file I opened did complain of a missing index - which means you can not search across all the files with Acrobat's search function.

The quality of the scanned pages is okay at best. Some images are a bit fuzzy and broken up (see below).

Oddly enough they also threw into the General section the Service Information Technik Books from MY2002.

Since the quality is poor, it does not cover C4S, Targa, or GT3 mk2, and this version does not have the additional supplements I can't recommend it. Even for only $20 much of the information is outdated.

[Richard Hamilton]

I bought a CD set on eBay made by Lexcom (the German company that make the PET). As Loren says, it isn't up-to-date, but it works for me as a starting point to use combined with the TSB's here. The pages have obviously been automatically scanned, and there are pages that are blurry. It can never be as good as a printed manual, but I find it useable. I bought a Boxster manual from www.workshopmanuals.co.uk and also had the "missing index" problem. I fixed that by using some files (which I modified) from the Lexcom CD's and it works perfectly.

[Izzy]

I clicked on the download this morning, took me to a page for payment, picked paypal and payed. Then nothing. I contacted the customer service as to how to download, nothing. Good thing I used paypal, and can get my $$ back worst case. Did I miss something on the download?

Izzy

[Loren]

I clicked on the download this morning, took me to a page for payment, picked paypal and payed.  Then nothing.  I contacted the customer service as to how to download, nothing.  Good thing I used paypal, and can get my $$ back worst case.  Did I miss something on the download?

Izzy

After the receipt page you should have been taken to a (simple) page to download. You also should have received a confirmation email and an email with the download link to your PayPal email account (2 emails). That is how it worked for me...

[Izzy]

Thank you Loren. I cancelled the first order and re-did it, it is downloading now. Will burn a couple of CD's to keep it safe. I have a MY99, good to now your comparison.

Izzy

[Richard Hamilton]

In response to a PM on this subject:

The 996 manual I bought (on eBay) is a 2-CD set made by Lexcom in Germany for Porsche. It contains a menu system that loads when you put the CD in the drive, and an indexing system when Acrobat reader starts. The workshopmanuals CD has the same pdf files, but is missing the index system. I think they fooled around with the index when they introduced their banner on the manual pages, and it screwed things up. Judging by the fact that their web site shows it as 618Mb, I assume that they supply it on ONE CD, which could be the root of the indexing problem. They must have stripped out some of the non-essentials, because my CD1 is 712Mb and CD2 is 237Mb. My reason for saying the files are the same on my CD as the workshopmanuals CD is that the pages that Loren shows (above) have the same faults.

That was the problem I had with the Boxster manual I bought from them. I managed to modify the index files from the 996 CD's and put them on the Boxster CD to get the menu system and indexing.

It would be possible to re-create the 2-CD set with menu and index. You would need to separate the correct pdf files to two directories on your hard disk, add sub-directories to these containing the missing files (about 3Mb for each disk) and burn two new CD's.

If there is enough interest, I would be happy to supply the instructions and files to Loren to host on this board if he thinks it is a good idea, although copyright may be an issue. I don't know how renntech would stand on this, because workshopmanuals have probably breached copyright by supplying them in the first place.

[Loren]

Sorry folks we can not post copyrighted materials here with out the copyright owners permission or the copyright owner putting their materials in the public domain.

[Richard Hamilton]

Loren

I understand perfectly, and apologise for not consulting you first. I should have thought more carefully before suggesting it. I appreciate the marvellous job you do here, and would not wish to jeopardise your position in any way.

:oops:

Richard