Citroen XM Forum

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/302441818218 ... 1272758916" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Enough to put me off. Where the heck did the data come from?
Sorry, but I smell a rat there.

Sounds suspicious to me too although he apparently has good feedback. I think I would like some details about him first.

Peter

There is a little critical feed back.
Mainly the point raised seems to be that it is a set of data scans without a good index.
He seems to refund the complainers to close problems.
His terms and conditions make much of peoples computer incompetence regarding downloads.
Claims he will help but says he is not there to provide basic computer support.
States that if you fail to get a complete download the problem will be at your end.
Mention is made of DVD's but only Download codes valid for a short time are offered.

John

Fishy. Lack of critical feed back does not mean anything on ebay anymore.

He has far too much to say. Bargepole candidate!

The vendor does not go out of his way to be likeable, the lack of indexing may be frustrating, and he may not have the right to sell it, but at least the information is there. How else can it (legally?) be obtained.

I reckon the answer to that is 'it can't' - not in electronic form anyway. I'm pretty certain he won't have been given or even sought permission to copy/scan it from a kosher paper copy.

One legal route to getting a workshop manual would be to buy a paper one when a garage had gone out of business - to my knowledge, manufacturers do not go and remove old workshop manuals from ex dealers so they might turn up at liquidation sales and then eBay. Probably a different kettle of fish where a dealership with a full Lexia system goes belly up, though.

Having said all that, I bought a workshop manual for a Toyota in 2004, that was available both as download and on CD, having no other source of such information at the time - no forum with knowledge base and no Haynes manual. (I'd remembered how my Dad treasured the original paper workshop manual in its branded binder, dark blue, 'Marina' picked out in silver in the correct font etc. that he acquired some time in the 70s.) Good quality images, indexed - the whole Toyota workshop manual, scanned well and put on a nicely labelled disk. It paid for its 15quid price tag many times over. I didn't see how it could be legit and I still reckon it isn't, but I've not found a way to get my hands on an original since.

I'd not buy from this guy though as I don't like his attitude, and poor spelling and grammar winds me right up...

I can't tell you exact details about the Japanese version but when this first came up probably on a mailing list many-many years ago, I recall Mazda being (one) specific example that did it quite well. For a modest sum, you could buy a few hours worth of access online and whatever you could download for your model was yours. It was before broadband, so time limit was a limit all right.

Citroën later had something similar but not on that scale.