Hi,
Long time Escape owner here. Previous vehicles were a 2002 4WD & a 2008 4WD Hybrid. Just ordered a 2014 Titanium. For all previous vehicles, I always had a full set of Shop Manuals (not just the owner's manual). Are they available for the 2014's , does anyone know ??
Thanks ! I'm actually looking for the detailed shop manuals, not the User ones.. The same info used by Ford Mechanics.... Maybe I missed something, but I didn 't see those...
Ford used to sell the printed ones, but I'm guessing today it may be only DVD's..
Thanks ! I'm actually looking for the detailed shop manuals, not the User ones.. The same info used by Ford Mechanics.... Maybe I missed something, but I didn 't see those...
Ford used to sell the printed ones, but I'm guessing today it may be only DVD's..
Got my Helms CD this week. OK, but I really miss the printed manual that I could have in the garage when I'm wrenching away. Unlikely I'll want to handle my laptop or tablet with dirty or greasy hands.... Oh well, at least I have access to the info, & I should be able to print from it.
Got my Helms CD this week. OK, but I really miss the printed manual that I could have in the garage when I'm wrenching away. Unlikely I'll want to handle my laptop or tablet with dirty or greasy hands.... Oh well, at least I have access to the info, & I should be able to print from it. /QUOTE]I
I miss the paper manual as well. You could thumb though pages and quickly find what you need. Searching the digital version can be very cryptic and you could be one click away from the info you need yet never know it. Plus Ford seems to be cutting back on typed info and leaning more towards pretty pictures for the illiterate.
Granted a picture is worth a 1000 words but give me written directions over just pictures anytime.
I'm not sure if you can transfer the manual contents to PDF form, but if you can and you have a tablet and want to keep it grease-free, put it inside a ZipLock bag. The touch features still work thought the bag material.
You can use the built-in print function (very small symbol just above the lower left corner of each page frame) and select your Adobe / Acrobat clone printer if you have one installed on your PC. Just select the right-side page frame as 'active' so you don't get the left-side contents frame on your printed pages. You'll get exactly the pages as if you had a hard-copy manual.
Not too practical for the whole manual but fantastic for selected pages when working on a particular assembly / area. I print 'em to PDF when project planning then go to paper from those PDF's to take into the workshop when doing the project.
Slight hijack ... anyone found a Virtual CD program that works with the manual in Windows 7 64-bit (to let you run an ISO copy of the Service Manual CD from your hard drive without the CD in the tray)? I use VirtualClone Drive but the Ford/Helm Service Manual doesn't play nice with that app.
Thanks for this thread. I'll order the CD. I, too, like a paper version. Oh well. Bentley Publishers used to VW/Audi manuals. I've bought both CDs and books before. Greatly prefer the books. Much easier to find things for an old guy.
It certainly took me awhile to get the hang of finding stuff on the CD but now I really like it, the hyperlinking is pretty handy. Actually I like always having a 'clean' manual and printing pages to take to the dirty-hands workshop for projects. Also, if you have Acrobat or grab a freeware 'print to PDF' driver online it's pretty handy for printing pages from the CD to a PDF file for building your own stash of 'frequently referenced' pages.
TIPS -
+ Don't ignore the Alphabetical Index near the top of the Workshop Manual table of contents .... just browsing through that can help you get a feel for how things are organized.
+ The "Overview" and "System Operation and Component Description" sections in the front of each major sub-section make for great reading and can really help you get a handle on the terms used to name things your are looking for.
+ The Wiring Diagrams on CD is incredibly great - looking at a schematic of interest and being able to click hyperlinks for connector locations and connector pin-outs is fantastic, MUCH better than fishing through pages of paper, IMHO.
.... this from an 'over 60' Luddite that never thought he'd like a CD over paper ;-)
... The Wiring Diagrams on CD is incredibly great - looking at a schematic of interest and being able to click hyperlinks for connector locations and connector pin-outs is fantastic, MUCH better than fishing through pages of paper ...
I'd like a manual but am reluctant to purchase from Helm's. I paid a good bit for a CD for my truck a long time ago. Windows XP as the OS at the time. After XP became history in our house the CD wouldn't work on any computer. Helm's wouldn't replace it for me. I paid a big price for a few years of use... If Windows 10 is truly the last numbered Microsoft OS release, maybe that won't be a problem anymore.
Additionally, I had a difficult time finding what I was looking for on the CD and the steps seemed to be missing important information that would leave me scratching my head. For example, it would tell you to remove something without describing how to remove it.
FWIW I've run the CD on Win 7 Pro and Win 10 Pro (both 64 bit) no problem. No guarantee at all of course about what Microsoft may change in the future to make software obsolete ;-)
The CD seems to be completely a "Ford" item sold through Helm - maybe they 'burn' the CD but Helm's name isn't on the disk anywhere nor does it appear on any user screen.
In both those OS, after completing the install from the original disk I am able to then redirect to a virtual CD iso image and run without the actual disk in the machine - it runs super-fast that way (done with built-in tools in Win 10; had to use Daemon Virtual Disk utility to do it in Win 7). But the copy protection won't allow the initial install to succeed from the iso image - ya gotta install from the original disk first and then load the iso image on a virtual drive of the same 'letter' used for the original install (tip - temporarily rename your CD drive device to letter 'z' or whatever to do the installation).
The descriptive index is pretty good IMHO (not just 'one-word' entries) but it does take some time spent with it to get the hang of finding some stuff. Usually if you get 'in the area' there's hyperlinks to help hone-in on the specific item of interest. But no question, the more time I spend with it the more apparent/intuitive the organization becomes.
You might be surprised at the 100% pictorial approach to the R&R sections (I was). But when in the sequence of R&R an item, something else is 'in the way', there's always a text note that also serves as a hyperlink for jumping to the R&R section for the 'in the way' item. About the only other text in those R&R sections are the fastener torque notes.
Have you looked at Alldatadiy? They seem to have 2014. I've been using Alldatadiy for repair info for my 2009 Focus SE. The subscription cost was fairly reasonable.
Szum
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