[silver_spirit_iv]

I bought my Silver Spirit in 1997 and if like me you have been ripped off by the dealer, or have been to a small garage where the guy had made a mess of your precious car, then there are only 2 solutions left.

1) find a good specialist at a good price or

2) do the repairs yourself

The problem is, these cars have to be dealt with appropriately. Not doing so may severely damage the car. If you have a minimum of mechanical knowledge and can follow instructions, you too can work on your car and save huge sums of money. These manuals are available here:
http://www.rolls-royce.150m.com/workshop_manuals/indexen.html

 

[Lew]

That's too generic for me to answer. I do some work I feel comfortable with, but leave most of the heavy mechanicals to the experts.

 

[silver_spirit_iv]

Once I got ripped off very badly by a garage called 'Chelsea Workshop' www.chelseaworkshop.co.uk I had a leak in the exhaust manifold and this needed to be fixed. They quoted me £250 for the job. When I went with my wife to pick the car up a £650 bill was waiting for me. They gave me some stupid excuse as why the bill was 3 fold higher. Now that I have the manuals, in fact this is a very simple job and the part cost less than £10, but of course if you do not know, you think, well they are specialists and this is a skilled jobs when in fact they robbed me blind. Of course if now I were to have a problem with hydraulic or something that require special tools, understandibly it will cost me less to give it to someone to fix it than to buy the tools. This applies differently to each person, depending on how well they are equipped and if they feel that they can do the job.

 

[GuyMark]

I had a look at the manuals link, I take it they are in English - the paypal side looks to be French.

Do the manuals cover such things as carburettor adjustments, use of the daignostic socket etc?

If the manuals are really well prepared I am happy to spend E40 - but would like a little feedback please from any folks who have already bought them and had a look through.

Mark

 

[silver_spirit_iv]

The manuals 65 up to 89 (English only) are well explained. You just need to look through the pages for the repair you need to do. So far I have used it to fix the transponder, hand brake cables & adjustments, removal and complete rebuilt of the spirit of ecstasy mechanism as it was not coming down well anymore and the part that lock the front door. My car is quite trouble free so I did not have to use it more than that. All the parts are also listed so it is quite nice especially for mail order as you can tell the guy exactly what is needed. For the manual 1990-2000 this can be installed either in French, English, Deutsch, Spanish or Italian and this work by serial number. You enter the one of your car and you'll have direct access to it. However installation HAS TO BE FOLLOWED BY THE LETTER. Not doing so and the program WON'T work. but once installed it is a nice thing to have.

 

[GuyMark]

Thank you for the helpful comments

I shall perhaps buy the manuals today now.

Mark

 

[Henry Perkins]

I just received the 1977 to 1980 CD's. Haven't put them in the computer yet, but the cover designs are good and the things look very professional.

 

[GuyMark]

Well I went ahead and bought the manuals - and depending on what you want to do, some of the pages are "ok".

The pages are simply scanned in from the original - and although some of the line drawings are clear enough to follow, others are almost useless - picture a large mass of grey with some squiggles which are still only squiggles if you zoom in.

Some of the wiring diagrams have illegible text - which effectively renders them FAR from ideal. In fairness, with a lot of effort you can work out what some of the bits SHOULD say.

What doesn't help is that you ony stand a chance of doing this if you zoom right in, if you simply aim to print out the pages you will need to refer to when doing the job - think again. The text on wiring diagrams is then usually impossible to decode.

It's a great shame, had the pages been scanned in with a better quality scanner and possibly greyscale used on the photographs, this would be a great resource.

As it is, if anyone is silly enough to give me £12.50 for it - about 1/2 of the price - then you are welcome to it - for the bits I do not need a manual for, I can manage without - for the parts that I *WANTED* a decent manual, the photographs and line drawings are often so poor as to be unusable. As it is, I think if someone just plonked the pdf file online for a £5 download that would be fair enough - but £25 (E37) for this is, in my opinion a bit cheeky.

An example page here :- http://www.mark.lineisp.co.uk/bentman.htm

 

[silver_spirit_iv]

:roll: I think what is best for you, is to visit the dealer for your problem.
If you think this is a lot to pay, then you will have a heart attack at the dealer. Please do not hesitate after to share with us the bill you would have had to pay. We will all be very interested to know how many 100 times over you would have had to pay extra to fix 1 problem.

 

[GuyMark]

You miss the point. Deliberately I suspect as you seem to be the one plugging the manuals

My complaint is simply that the scan of the manual is so poor in places, that you CANNOT be sure you are going to be doing the right thing. I was not suggesting that going to a main dealer to have a cylinder head gasket would cost less than £25 for example.

"How many hundreds of times over...." Wow, just how many thousands did someone try to take from you to service the air-con ?

Are you suggesting that when a diagram is so badly scanned and it hopelessly misleading, it is better to "plough on regardless" because it would be impossible to do more damage than if you just left well alone.

I put example scans of the air-con system up so people could make an informed choice. If they feel that having unreadable circuit daigrams and grey splodges to illustrate things is the best way forward (or at least an acceptable way forward), then there is nothing to stop them ordering a manual.

I was simply pointing out that anyone who was planning on purchasing a manual with the idea that they would have clear diagrams and readable circuit diagrams, should either try elsewhere or simply proceed without them - as many of the grey scale diagrams are next to unreadable - the line drawings are fine - as I said before.

If someone took the time to scan the manual in properly, then they would be worth the price - and more besides.

Mark

 

[silver_spirit_iv]

I guess experiences are different for each person. I have the manuals too, and I am glad I have them. I do not have electrical problems on my car and of course cannot speak of your experience. But for the problems I had, it certainly took me longer to do it than a specialist would. What interest me the most is that I can work on the car myself and see better how it is made but also to save large sums of money (who can say here, that throwing money away is no big deal?).

:arrow: On my computer, the files open at 19%, which is not so readable. For a better view I either print what is needed or I zoom to 100%

 

[jimknopf]

CDs with manuals and parts catalogue

Same here - I bought a set of such cds at some ebay-dealership.
The manuals are nice to play with but very often unusable. The
parts catalogue helps little more. I guess I keep on looking for
the origninal printed version...


Regards JimKnopf

 

[Henry Perkins]

I'm a publisher, so I asked my printer how much it would be to print a manual from the CDs. Hundreds of £££ because the bloody thing is huge! If you printed 100 copies that cost would go down, but it would be a considerable expense and strictly speaking illegal surely, because RR must still own the copyright to the images and text. Originals go for about £200 don't they?

 

[jimknopf]

Originals go for about £200 don't they?

That is exactly what I am looking for. I got a mechanic here in Munich, who doestn't work on RR/B anymore. I hope to get his books - which I had in my hands already...


Bye, JimKnopf

 

[Stirling]

I have heard that VW has made the pre-takeover publications to be freely distributable, while retaining the copyright. Basically you are allowed to make copies and sell them just for the cost of production (no profit), or give them away.

Can anyone confirm this?

If it is true, I would like to arrange for free downloads from the forum.

 

[jimknopf]

Hello to France from l'Allemagne!

The Australian RR-forum keepers have an enormous amount of files online for quite a while and they cover a popular range of models.
They have pages for the technically interested user in particular. Google will help to easily find them.

Some ebay vendors get their stuff from there and sell it, which I do not support at all!


Regards, JimKnopf

 

[silver_spirit_iv]

This is available here: http://www.bentleytechinfo.com

Not all models are covered :roll:

 

[Lew]

The Aussie forum is in the process of doing this. They already have some available.

 

[jimknopf]

This is available here: http://www.bentleytechinfo.com

I surfed to the named website but that page is of no use...
to me. Why?

Because of:


* The page you have requested cannot be found.
* There is an error with the website.
* Your Browser is not Internet Explorer v5.5+
* You do not have cookies enabled.
* You do not have JavaScript enabled.
* You are not running on a Windows Based PC
* You are not running Windows 98, 2000, XP or NT 4

Please correct the problem and try again.




I definitely will not use any sort of Internet Explorer.
I definitely will not buy any sort of Windows computer.

That's too many restrictions that others, at least the
ones running the page in question, are setting up on
me. With the above I'd allow access to my computer
in a way that I do not want.

I myself consider for myself a website demanding the
above as dangerous. I would only surf to such websites
on an absolutely naked machine that has been setup
a minute ago and that does not contain any personal
information and programs.

Sorry to say...



Greets, JimKnopf

 

[KC Saayman]

I have heard that VW has made the pre-takeover publications to be freely distributable, while retaining the copyright. Basically you are allowed to make copies and sell them just for the cost of production (no profit), or give them away.

Can anyone confirm this?

If it is true, I would like to arrange for free downloads from the forum.

Yes it is true, and in view of that I find it appalling and against the spirit of true enthusiasm that someone should try to make profit by selling the manuals after the owners of the literature said we may use it free of charge in order to keep the older cars going.

I bought my CD manuals at a much-inflated price a few years ago, and now give copies to anyone who asks for them.

Regards

KC