Factory-Manuals.com product review

[Buyer2021]

As many know you can get 72-hour subscription access to the full service manuals for your Gen 14 F150 for only $22 at Motorcraftservice.com . I've used this many times and it's an outstanding value, the complete and most up-to-the-minute service data, same as used by dealers. It only runs on a PC but is super-easy to use with extensive hyperlinking and absolutely everything you could possibly want including complete Workshop Manual, Wiring Diagrams, Connector Details, component location figures, etc, etc, etc. You can print any page to any printer set up on your PC, including 'save to PDF' for permanent archiving. IMO it's a fantastic resource and I give it a 5/5 rating in all respects.

Ford does not offer a Workshop Manual for download and saving on your computer - only the subscription service described above.

BUT, there's Factory-Manuals.com which claims to offer a PDF download for personal use. I took a chance and paid $169 for their complete set of Workshop Manual and Wiring Diagrams for my 2022 F150.

Note this product is specific to a single VIN, the content is filtered for applicability to that VIN, so the exact content and number of pages may vary from what I received. Worth noting that the subscrition service allows viewing service data based on make-year-model OR VIN-specific filtering; the latter results in 'hiding' of some pages according to what is applicable to the VIN if you use that option, and that VIN-filter seems to be applied with the Factory-Manuals.com product.

Following is my review of the product:

Purchase & Delivery Experience

I used the fairly straightforward ordering system on the website and payed with PayPal. I did NOT enter my phone where requested on the website and that did not interfere with my order. Email confirmation of the order was immediate along with an email explaining the download would be available in 12-48 hours. I received the download link the next day, about 20 hours after ordering. The download link worked fine, the file size was 1.23 GB in my case.

All good insofar as Purchase & Delivery, I give it a 5/5 rating

The Document Structure / Document Navigation

The Workshop Manual and Wiring Diagrams are both contained in a single PDF file. For my VIN that's a 22,291 page PDF document (!).

There is a bookmark for the Workshop Manual and a separate bookmark for the Wiring Diagrams; there's fairly extensive bookmarks under each of those main headings.

The 'Index' and "contents' pages have hyperlinks to referenced sections within the PDF document.

However, many (but not all) hyperlinks contained on the pages of substantive content are NOT active; for example, when viewing a wiring diagram page the hyperlink to a connector detail or a location diagram is NOT active. That means one must make a note of the item of interest and use the bookmarks pane to find that detail or location diagram.

This is a significant difference from the subscription Workshop Manuals and Wiring Diagrams. I can see that with familiarity one can get better at using the document, but IMO any way you cut it the navigation is much more cumbersome than the subscription service with its very sophisticated hyperlinking / document navigation scheme.

insofar as The Document Structure / Document Navigation I give it a 2/5 rating

Document Content / Completeness (see edit at end of post)

There's no question that the content of the PDF is the taken in whole from the Ford Motorcraft source; the substantive page content and figures are all identical to the Ford Motorcraft subscription service pages (with some formatting adjustments to fit standard PDF page format, essentially the same as one would see when saving a page from the subscription service to PDF on your computer).

Ford places a revision date on each main section page, those differ for each section (some may have later revisions than others) but this document seems to be current to the date of my order, which is the best one could hope.

Though I obviously haven't exhaustively compared between the subscription and the PDF, it seems that all of the content for my VIN is in fact included somewhere with the 22,291 pages of the PDF.

Insofar as Document Content / Completeness i give it a 5/5 rating

OVERALL VALUE

GIven that Ford does not offer a complete Workshop Manual for download IMO this is a good-value product; I've certainly paid more than $169 for less authoritaive workshop manuals and that price is in-line with the cost of Genuine Ford Manuals when those were available in the past.

Obviously, the PDF is 'fixed in time' so it won't include any service procedure or content revisions issued by Ford after the date of download (the subscription service is constantly updated and current).

The document navigation shortcomings earn a 1-point deduct from me.

Insofar as Overall Value I give a 4/5 rating

Is this product 'copyright legal'?

Personally I'm sensitive to copyright infringement and am very disinclined to participate in or support illegal bootlegging of anyone's intellectual property of any sort.

I could not find any explicit simple statement saying "Our Products Are Legal" on the factory-Manuals.com website.

I did read the complete "TERMS & CONDITIONS" page on the website which touches on copyright issues (buyer agrees that the product is for personal use only, so posting content on this forum, for example, would be a breach of the buyer's agreement to purchase). The T&C makes reference to "right to repair", a term which may have legal standing in the British Commonwealth and the EU different from the US.

I'm not a lawyer. So I can't assert for certain that this product does not infringe on Ford's copyrights. I hope it does not.
________________

All my opinions posted just FYI, I hope of interest or value to some forum members.

>>>>>> EDIT UPDATE >>>>>>​

​

Now having spent some months using this manual and digging for some rather esoteric stuff I must report that there are some sections of information and wiring diagrams not included which are applicable to my VIN. It's few and far between but it does happen. The missing info seems limited to optional features that I have on my VIN but which are not common to all F150 Lariats.​

​

So, insofar as Document Content / Completeness I must reduce my 'rating' from 5/5 to 4/5.​

​

It's still a worthwhile value IMO, but that occasionally missing info can be frustrating.​

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[oneinch]

I can't say about this service, but there are services that provide PDF copies of the manuals and I think it is legal though Ford may not like it. I looked into this years ago; specifically a group out of India. Why it is legal IMO is because you buy access to the online manuals and they replace your person. They work their magic and time and download all the info for you. It's no different than if you did it yourself. It's a lot of stuff to download. I don't think I could do it and not in 72 hours. They can though. It no different than you buying access and then having your tech savvy kid at the keyboard.

 

[mrtull]

I was about to ask a question about this very site... I'm glad I searched first.

I am not a "car guy" so I likely would not purchase the repair manual. I would like the wiring manual because I do like tinkering with electronics and other niceties. So the $69 manual vs. $22 for 72 hours....

If I buy the manual once, I can reference it for life. Per your review, there is a small probability that I might need something unique to my VIN but aside from 360 cameras and Pseudo-Co-Pilot I don't think I'm that variable from other XLT 302As.

I've purchased the 72 hours once and spent most of that time gawking at the breadth and depth of the information! I gleaned quite a few things, although the lack of later reference is a downside. I did do some cutting and pasting, but very limited and specific to just a few wiring harnesses; I believe this is well within "fair use".

If I do this 3 more times to reference wiring and operation and OTA info and other goodies, then I've spent $66 in total, $3 less than the manual. And I suspect that once I've completed a few key projects, I'll be done with what I meant to accomplish. Additional 72 hour segments will certainly not be unreasonable if needed. And during these sessions, I can compare to other models.

Therefore, in conjunction with this review, I would rather do the subscription at strategic intervals. Thank you for your thorough assessment!

 

[Zyvin]

As many know you can get 72-hour subscription access to the full service manuals for your Gen 14 F150 for only $22 at Motorcraftservice.com . I've used this many times and it's an outstanding value, the complete and most up-to-the-minute service data, same as used by dealers. It only runs on a PC but is super-easy to use with extensive hyperlinking and absolutely everything you could possibly want including complete Workshop Manual, Wiring Diagrams, Connector Details, component location figures, etc, etc, etc. You can print any page to any printer set up on your PC, including 'save to PDF' for permanent archiving. IMO it's a fantastic resource and I give it a 5/5 rating in all respects.

Ford does not offer a Workshop Manual for download and saving on your computer - only the subscription service described above.

BUT, there's Factory-Manuals.com which claims to offer a PDF download for personal use. I took a chance and paid $169 for their complete set of Workshop Manual and Wiring Diagrams for my 2022 F150.

Note this product is specific to a single VIN, the content is filtered for applicability to that VIN, so the exact content and number of pages may vary from what I received. Worth noting that the subscrition service allows viewing service data based on make-year-model OR VIN-specific filtering; the latter results in 'hiding' of some pages according to what is applicable to the VIN if you use that option, and that VIN-filter seems to be applied with the Factory-Manuals.com product.

Following is my review of the product:

Purchase & Delivery Experience

I used the fairly straightforward ordering system on the website and payed with PayPal. I did NOT enter my phone where requested on the website and that did not interfere with my order. Email confirmation of the order was immediate along with an email explaining the download would be available in 12-48 hours. I received the download link the next day, about 20 hours after ordering. The download link worked fine, the file size was 1.23 GB in my case.

All good insofar as Purchase & Delivery, I give it a 5/5 rating

The Document Structure / Document Navigation

The Workshop Manual and Wiring Diagrams are both contained in a single PDF file. For my VIN that's a 22,291 page PDF document (!).

There is a bookmark for the Workshop Manual and a separate bookmark for the Wiring Diagrams; there's fairly extensive bookmarks under each of those main headings.

The 'Index' and "contents' pages have hyperlinks to referenced sections within the PDF document.

However, many (but not all) hyperlinks contained on the pages of substantive content are NOT active; for example, when viewing a wiring diagram page the hyperlink to a connector detail or a location diagram is NOT active. That means one must make a note of the item of interest and use the bookmarks pane to find that detail or location diagram.

This is a significant difference from the subscription Workshop Manuals and Wiring Diagrams. I can see that with familiarity one can get better at using the document, but IMO any way you cut it the navigation is much more cumbersome than the subscription service with its very sophisticated hyperlinking / document navigation scheme.

insofar as The Document Structure / Document Navigation I give it a 2/5 rating

Document Content / Completeness (see edit at end of post)

There's no question that the content of the PDF is the taken in whole from the Ford Motorcraft source; the substantive page content and figures are all identical to the Ford Motorcraft subscription service pages (with some formatting adjustments to fit standard PDF page format, essentially the same as one would see when saving a page from the subscription service to PDF on your computer).

Ford places a revision date on each main section page, those differ for each section (some may have later revisions than others) but this document seems to be current to the date of my order, which is the best one could hope.

Though I obviously haven't exhaustively compared between the subscription and the PDF, it seems that all of the content for my VIN is in fact included somewhere with the 22,291 pages of the PDF.

Insofar as Document Content / Completeness i give it a 5/5 rating

OVERALL VALUE

GIven that Ford does not offer a complete Workshop Manual for download IMO this is a good-value product; I've certainly paid more than $169 for less authoritaive workshop manuals and that price is in-line with the cost of Genuine Ford Manuals when those were available in the past.

Obviously, the PDF is 'fixed in time' so it won't include any service procedure or content revisions issued by Ford after the date of download (the subscription service is constantly updated and current).

The document navigation shortcomings earn a 1-point deduct from me.

Insofar as Overall Value I give a 4/5 rating

Is this product 'copyright legal'?

Personally I'm sensitive to copyright infringement and am very disinclined to participate in or support illegal bootlegging of anyone's intellectual property of any sort.

I could not find any explicit simple statement saying "Our Products Are Legal" on the factory-Manuals.com website.

I did read the complete "TERMS & CONDITIONS" page on the website which touches on copyright issues (buyer agrees that the product is for personal use only, so posting content on this forum, for example, would be a breach of the buyer's agreement to purchase). The T&C makes reference to "right to repair", a term which may have legal standing in the British Commonwealth and the EU different from the US.

I'm not a lawyer. So I can't assert for certain that this product does not infringe on Ford's copyrights. I hope it does not.
________________

All my opinions posted just FYI, I hope of interest or value to some forum members.

>>>>>> EDIT UPDATE >>>>>>​

​

Now having spent some months using this manual and digging for some rather esoteric stuff I must report that there are some sections of information and wiring diagrams not included which are applicable to my VIN. It's few and far between but it does happen. The missing info seems limited to optional features that I have on my VIN but which are not common to all F150 Lariats.​

​

So, insofar as Document Content / Completeness I must reduce my 'rating' from 5/5 to 4/5.​

​

It's still a worthwhile value IMO, but that occasionally missing info can be frustrating.​

I've been using these since 2013 and find it really good. I got them originally for stereo upgrades (wiring and seeing how trim comes off etc.) The best part is that I have a copy on my phone, my home and work computer.

Is there a specific wiring diagram you were looking for that you didn't find? I find that mine has diagrams to options that I do not have i.e. powerboost stuff, but I have never NOT found something that I was looking for.

 

[Aron]

I was about to ask a question about this very site... I'm glad I searched first.

I am not a "car guy" so I likely would not purchase the repair manual. I would like the wiring manual because I do like tinkering with electronics and other niceties. So the $69 manual vs. $22 for 72 hours....

If I buy the manual once, I can reference it for life. Per your review, there is a small probability that I might need something unique to my VIN but aside from 360 cameras and Pseudo-Co-Pilot I don't think I'm that variable from other XLT 302As.

I've purchased the 72 hours once and spent most of that time gawking at the breadth and depth of the information! I gleaned quite a few things, although the lack of later reference is a downside. I did do some cutting and pasting, but very limited and specific to just a few wiring harnesses; I believe this is well within "fair use".

If I do this 3 more times to reference wiring and operation and OTA info and other goodies, then I've spent $66 in total, $3 less than the manual. And I suspect that once I've completed a few key projects, I'll be done with what I meant to accomplish. Additional 72 hour segments will certainly not be unreasonable if needed. And during these sessions, I can compare to other models.

Therefore, in conjunction with this review, I would rather do the subscription at strategic intervals. Thank you for your thorough assessment!

To maybe further cement your assessment, the service manual download is $169, not $69, so you would need to access it more than 7 times to "break even."
Edit: looks like I misunderstood the cost breakout.

 

[Zyvin]

The manual is $99.99 and the wiring diagrams are an extra $69.99.

 

[mrtull]

The manual is $99.99 and the wiring diagrams are an extra $69.99.

So you can't just purchase the wiring diagram?!? I didn't try; the website made it look like you uncheck the repair manual but I didn't go any further. That definitely makes it a no brainer!

 

[Zyvin]

So you can't just purchase the wiring diagram?!? I didn't try; the website made it look like you uncheck the repair manual but I didn't go any further. That definitely makes it a no brainer!

I believe you can buy either separately.

 

[mrtull]

I believe you can buy either separately.

Thanks for the clarification... I took Extra to mean it required the repair manual first.

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