Car & Motorcycle Manuals etc.

1987 to 1997 (D to P reg.) Petrol, Haynes number 1691, Haynes Publishing (Yeovil, Somerset) 1999

26.9 x 19.8 cm, 670g, ISBN 1 85960 565 6

Haynes manuals are something of an institution, and all describe a strip-down and rebuild of a new vehicle. The procedures to carry out a particular task (for example the replacement of the steering ball-joints) are fully described, with descriptive photographs or line-drawings, including exploded views where necessary. Each task is graded according to its difficulty, from one spanner for easy to five spanners for a task which should really have been given to your local specialist garage, but which you can try if you are feeling brave. Each manual has a section on fault finding, a glossary of technical terms and an index. See the description below from the book’s rear cover.

Each volume is bound in glazed pictorial boards, and is printed on paper which shows a tendency to brown at the edges. Also please bear in mind that these are secondhand copies, and may well have the odd oily thumb-print on the page you are looking at. This particular manual has clearly seen a lot of use and the glaze on the covers has started to separate from the boards. Also the bottom outer corner of pages appear to have been damp at some time in the past, though they have dried out. However, the binding is sound and the book is perfectly usable.

Haynes are to be congratulated for keeping so many of these manuals in print, but most of the manuals still in print are only available in a paperback edition, which is rather less durable than the wipe-clean cover of the original hardback edition. This particular manual for the Volvo 440, 460 & 480 is still in print in hardback at £17.24.