GM now offering the Factory Service Manual as a subscription?!?

[CrashTestDummy]

I've been considering getting a 2024/25 Sierra 1500 to replace our '02 2500HD, since it's getting old, and I'm thinking it'll be the last vehicle I probably buy and I'd like something with a warranty. Anyway, since I usually have factory service manuals (FSM) for every vehicle I own, I went searching the Helm website to see how much the FSM for one of these would cost. They do NOT list a FSM for 2020+ model car vehicles. Is that true?!? Can the only way you can get access to a GM FSM is to have a freaking subscription?? I really prefer paper copies I can thumb through, as electronic/PDF copies really are terrible to try to find stuff in, and you HAVE to have some tablet/phone running all the time to reference them.

This could change my thoughts on a new vehicle.

 

[homesick]

LOL, Microsoft strikes again- You can't buy products, you can only rent permission to use them. John Deere is a poster child for this.

joe

 

[PPV_2018]

Years ago (almost 10 years) my best friend bought an old computer that had TONS of awesome programs on it. I mean everything from MS office to a hard copy (not subscription based) of adobe photoshop and all their other programs. It was a gold mine. It had so many programs and everything was installed, registered, full unlocked copies. Stuff that you cannot “buy” any more, everything is now a “service” and not a “product” that you can buy.

One day i came by and asked him where is the computer?!!? He said he had to pawn it, but that he’d go get it back in a week or so. A bad stroke of luck and he couldn’t get the computer out of pawn. Lost forever. Gotta be f*ckin joking. to this day i still give him a hard time about that.

Anyways . . .

IF true that fsm is now subscription only, i suppose you could find someone that has the subscription and pay them to turn it into a pdf and sell it to you.. all 47,382 pages that is . . .

 

[RG23RST]

Why are you giving a third party your money? Just get a subscription to ACDELCO TDS and you can browse the same technical manuals as your dealership tech does. It's $22 before tax for a 3 day subscription. Download or print as PDF whatever you want in those 3 days.

 

[JayceeP]

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[homesick]

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?

 

[JayceeP]

?

I misread the OP’s post. I thought he meant owners manuals and maintenance schedules. Assuming FSM is something entirely different?

 

[homesick]

I misread the OP’s post. I thought he meant owners manuals and maintenance schedules. Assuming FSM is something entirely different?

I was just funnin' you.

joe

 

[fondupot]

I've always used AllDataDIY.com for my tech manuals. I have one for my 2021 Yukon. I think I paid like $130 for a 3 year subscription. They're very helpful, and you can print everything off in PDF. So much info on there.

But for some reason they do not have my 2024 Silverado 2500HD. So I'm looking into an alternative. I checked ACdelco TDS and its like over $1,000 for a year.

 

[CrashTestDummy]

I misread the OP’s post. I thought he meant owners manuals and maintenance schedules. Assuming FSM is something entirely different?

You can get owner's manuals, supplements, owner's assistance manuals (all the things that you find in the glove box) in paper format, but NOT the Factory Service Manual.

https://www.helminc.com/helm/Result...24&Category=&Keyword=&Module=&selected_media=

Seems only an e-reader/PDF version is available:

https://factorymanuals.net/collections/factory-gmc-service-repair-manuals

And, as said, my experience with PDF versions of manuals, ESPECIALLY the schizophrenic way GM does their manuals, is a miserable search task in electronic form. If I'm going to HAVE to have 4 manuals open to 5 different sections, I want to be able to bounce from book to book, laid out on the workbench, not trying to search the correct page then back to where I was, etc., via PDF.

That, and we usually keep vehicles well past their warranty and having to maintain a subscription for several years does not seem financially-sound.