When it comes to buying a repair manual...

[WBBulldogs]

What is best? I know I must hear this all the time that Chilton's is better than Haynes or Haynes is better than Chilton's. What is better? Does it matter?

[mattswabb]

Chiltons never made one for the festiva so I would say Haynes is better.

[miami man]

that is good to know Matt. now i can end my search for a festiva Chilton's Manuel

[WBBulldogs]

I didn't know that Chilton's didn't make a manual for the Festiva. I guess I have no choice than.

[Tim]

The Haynes manual covers much of the repairs, but I was disappointed by the lack of detail and misleading directions.

It will say "Remove bolt A to remove Manifold B," but they won't have a picture and don't tell you that Bolt A is in a really awkward place and you have to disconnect Flange C to remove Manifold B.

If you really want a detailed repair manual, buy the Festiva shop manual. They're like 20 bucks on ebay and cover any and every problem you could ever run into.


Regards,

Tim

[Rumnhammer]

manual

I agree, get the factory shop manual, also try and pick up the electrical and vacuum line manual, it is a smaller separate manual and very handy to have. The factory manual is year specific, so if you have either an 88-89 get one of those, years, or 90-93 get one of those years that way the manual will cover either the carb, or fuel injection.

The Haynes manual is not that bad, just a little vague in places, and a lot of the photos are actually from an Aspire, but better then nothing.
Chris Rummel

[miami man]

the Haynes Manuel in the photo of i think is checking for a warped head there is a photo of a head that is a 3 cylinder with 4 valves per cylinder.
i did not know that the festiva had this type of head..just kidding about the part that i did not know they had this type of head but the photo is in the book. also the Haynes talks about the egr valve and i spent some time looking for one on my festiva until i found out it did not come with one.

[25Horseplay]

Get a factory manual, they re on Ebay all the time and cover more than a Haynes by far.

[WBBulldogs]

What is the retail price for a factory manual versus the price on EBay?

[TheresGabe]

Here you go....

Depending on the year of your festivas...these were listed over on FA.com It's kind of a trick to get them downloaded, but they are the actual shop manuals that the ford dealership uses, and have ALL the information you could possibly need!

http://fordaspire.5.forumer.com/index.php?showtopic=630

[WBBulldogs]

I have a 1989 Ford Festiva L with a manual transmission.

[bravekozak]

It never hurts to have a complete collection of Festiva shop manuals for every year.
I even have a few other transmission repair + vacuum manuals and wiring diagrams that are not pictured.
It also doesn't hurt to have some Pride manuals also.
I just need to get a microfiche or reference to all of the Ford part numbers with schematics.

[MiltonHavoc]

I know its a lot of work, but you should scan those and put them up for all of us....?

[bravekozak]

Great news guys. I just won a $17 offer for a flatbed scanner from eBay about a half an hour ago. Cheap shipping too.
The only way to scan properly is via surgery. For the sake of science? Maybe I should just buy another set to sacrifice?
1989 was a very good year.
Is image text searchable? or would I have to convert it first?

[TorqueEffect]

the 89 manual has removable pages, at least the one I have does. more like a binder than a book.


Please scan it if you get one, mine is missing the "Speed Control" section for some reason. So I'd like to re-add that to it.