I have to agree that paper manuals are expensive but I don't think the automakers make
much of a profit on them. Otherwise, why would most of them farm the business out? The
cost of printing a relatively small number of paper manuals is a huge factor.
Now what I can blame them for is not distributing via some electronic media. You know
they are using desktop publishing to create the source. The cost to "publish" to a
CD-ROM is cheap. But then CD-ROM would be competing with the paper manuals and the
price differential would be huge.
Just my two cents ...
John Hammond
'95 S4
Houston
-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Chan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Oct 26, 2004 7:39 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [lotus-cars] Lotus parts, Elise manuals
Service Manuals are probably an old-school profit center for
automakers and they're probably unwilling to give that up.
I agree the manuals could be published online, in PDF form
on CD, etc. Paper is useful too however. Either can have
costs beyond the publishing alone. Managing all the documents
is probably several full time jobs, along with communicating
and coordinating the engineering changes, document changes, etc.
It's not quite the same a publishing a novel. ;-)
Helm manuals for more mundane cars are routinely in the $100-200
range for mechanical and electrical books. (Helm is a frequent
outsource publisher of factory service manuals.)
Jeff C.
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