Finding information about your car for beginners
Last Updated on July 22, 2024 by Mutiara
Information is the most crucial part of working one’s own vehicle. Without information most wouldn’t know about 90% of the modifications that can be performed to their vehicle, proper repair procedures, which parts are compatible, what type of vehicle to search for, and much more. Following are some tips on how to be more acquainted with researching information about your vehicle.
Determine the generation, year range, and similar makes
For the purpose of this article, a 1998 Ford Escort will be used. When one wants to find parts, articles, specs or anything of the sort they should first start by finding out more about the production year range, and similarities to other vehicles. For example, since the type of Ford Escort produced in 1998 ranges from 1997 to 2001, one can either search individually for each year or specify 97 in search terms as most who will list parts for that type will specify the year range, starting from 1997.
Automotive family tree
Another important thing to look up is the generation of your vehicle. This can usually be easily found either by looking at forums for the vehicle (as there will typically be different ones for each generation specifying the year range) or checking a general wikipedia article about the car. Going with the previous example, a 1998 Ford Escort is a 3rd generation Ford Escort. Hence sometimes looking up keywords with 3rd gen (or generation) included might yield better results. Keep in mind some vehicle communities will use Mk (short for Mark) instead of gen, for naming the vehicle types. This is especially popular with Volkswagen cars, which will usually include which mark they are, such as a Mk II GTI.
Lastly, find out which other car companies your vehicle’s manufacturer is associated with. This will provide many more options for referencing information and finding out what parts are compatible. Sometimes some cars will be identical with only few very minor differences between various manufacturers. The main manufacturer and car name should be used when finding information or parts for your vehicle. For example, a Mercury Tracer is the same exact car as a Ford Escort, although trying to find information about the Mercury Tracer or any aftermarket parts for it will usually yield only a small fraction of the potential results because everyone is aware that the main manufacturer is Ford and hence everything should be labeled as that. To get a good idea of who’s who in the automotive manufacturer world, see the Automotive family tree image to the right. Another factor to consider is what similar although not identical cars exist with the same chassis or engine. These will typically be brands that are not directly associated with the owner brand. One example is how the Mazda MX-3 shares many things in common with the Ford Escort due to both vehicles utilizing the Mazda BG chassis. Although some parts will not be identical, a lot of parts can be swapped, providing the owner with good bolt on upgrade options without having to undergo a lot of modification to the vehicle.
Automotive communities
If you fail to find the information you need for your vehicle through the use of a search engine, an alternative that is sometimes much better is finding the most popular online communities for your vehicle and searching or asking questions there instead. Google can only crawl so many parts of the web, and will often only have a fraction of the vast information that is available in various threads on automotive communities.
While browsing most forums is quite inconvenient due to constant bombardment from advertisements, pointless chatter, and other flaws, until such a wiki as this contains all information on cars (soon hopefully) there are few other options. One way to improve forum browsing experience is to install Ad-aware Pro plugin for Mozilla Firefox. Other similar ad blocking plugins exist for many browsers. Utilizing such software one is able to speed up load times, and decrease the visual annoyance of advertisements.
If you fail to find the results in the forum through the use of search, sometimes joining and asking is a good idea. Chances are someone will know the answer, or at least be able to point in the right direction. Typical ego inflating responses claiming the user is a newbie and foolish and that everything can be found in search (which it often can’t) are made when someone new joins to ask a question, but they should be ignored. Unlike other static forms of searching for information, participating on forums can turn into a very big drain of time and should be done with moderation.
Manuals and data services
When all else fails the only options left are to go look in a manual or a data service. An example of manuals can be Haynes manuals, which are available in every auto parts store. Most stores will not mind if you go in to check something in a manual, ripping off the plastic if necessary, without purchasing the manual. Since you are a potential customer of parts, which you can only use if you figure out how to apply them. Although Haynes manuals can be a bit brief and incomplete, that is when Chiltons manuals are useful. Typically available at the Library as reference material. If neither can be acquired or contains the information you need, the last option is alldata. Alldata is a service that provides factory manuals in a digital format, owned by Autozone. Avoid paying money for their subscriptions, to get the specific piece of information for free just go to a dealership and ask for some help and printouts pretending you need it so you can buy some parts from the parts department (or actually do so, occasionally some of the parts can sometimes be priced fairly and be of good quality).
Factory service manuals online
While a grey area for some, finding factory service manuals or even Haynes manuals can be quite easy for some vehicle owners. Occasionally someone will either scan an entire Haynes manual (without permission of course) or a factory service manual, and share them online through file hosting services, peer to peer networks, ftp sites, or other means. One good way to check if the manuals are available on file hosting services is to google the manual type along with general vehicle name along with the file hosting site in the keywords. An example is “ford escort haynes rapidshare”. After going through many false results and many popups/ads, sometimes success will come and the owner will be left with a full pdf (or other type) file on their disc containing all the information they’d ever need. This is not encouraged, but simply an explanation of how many people acquire their information.
Conclusion
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If you find the information you were looking for, and it took you a while, please help share it so others won’t have to go through as much trouble. If every enthusiast and mechanic did that you wouldn’t have had to spend any time searching for it in the first place. That is what this website plans to accomplish with due time. Contributing to this website is easy, just have a look at the help page for more info.
