It has been said at least once before that the official repair manual will be an electronic document accessible by subscription or individual time payments. The dealer manuals are already in that form. The subscriptions may not be cheap - my local independant mechanic pays about $2,000 a year to access and update the M-B manual (I don't know if it includes smart among the M-B models yet).
The electronic form may satisfy any governmental requirements. Hopefully a competent private publisher like Bentely will come up with something eventualy.
Separately, H.R. 2694 Title: "To protect the rights of consumers to diagnose, service, maintain, and repair their motor vehicles, and for other purposes." died without action in the last Congress (and also in the 109th Congress before that). So far it has not been re-introduced, and with the automakers and dealers in trouble now, it may not be.
N.B. Shortly after posting, I decided to move from "hope mode" to "do mode," and contacted Bentley Publishing (
http://www.bentleypublishers.com/) with a request that they consider publishing a smart manual, either as a stand-alone or as part of their M-B series. We'll see if they have any comment.
"the car", "la voiture"
Red Pearl
RV
The White Knight
Today
Linear Mode
