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Re: Personal Edition - Poor Quality
I'd like to second this; I got the personal edition of this CD about a
year ago, and have found it poorly organized, as well as thin on content
and pretty unprofessional in general. Thoughts on this:
-Technical service bulletins are nice! But there is no way to update
them, so I'm now missing a few. Since this was one of the few useful
features of the CD, it's unfortunate that it won't be of much use in
another year.
-The pictures are of horrible quality! It's fine if you want to scan
the pictures from the service manual, but at least do a good job-many of
them aren't even legible, i.e. the Fuse/Relay panel pictures. These
would be more useful if I could read them!
-The lack of organization doesn't help, either. When I was looking at a
problem with my Air Conditioner, I found a TSB that was helpful--it told
me to look at connector T5g in the Auxiliary Relay Panel. This is nice,
but which connector is T5g? It's not shown in the "Auxiliary Relay
Panel" diagram. It's also not shown in Vehicle->Locations->Wire
connectors. It's not in Heating and Air Conditioning->Diagrams.
Finally found it in Vehicle->Diagrams->Electrical Diagrams->Heating and
Air Conditioning->Connectors and plugs. A search utility could have
helped a lot here.
-Why did you even bother to include the repair section? It's totally
useless! What if I wanted to replace the coolant thermostat--Go to
Systems Information->Cooling System->Thermostat (the only entry there,
BTW)->Service and repair. And what does that get you?
1. Remove timing belt, refer to TIMING BELT. (not a link)
2. Remove coolant thermostat housing, then the thermostat.
3. Reverse procedure to install, ensuring that thermostat vent valve
faces upward.
This doesn't strike me as very helpful--I could have figured that out
myself!
But how do I remove the housing? Where *is* the housing? Does the
thermostat screw out? Pop out? Is there a seal I should watch out
for? What about a part number for the thermostat? Or a picture (even a
poorly scanned one)? I paid *how* much for this section?
Overall, I think I wasted my money on this CD.
--
Elliott
Todd Young wrote:
>
> First, a little background.
> I am very mechanically inclined, though I've never had post-high
> school automotive schooling. I rebuilt my first Chevy small block
> when I was 17 and it ran perfect. After high school I joined the Army
> as an MP as a way to pay for college. I then attended the U of Minn.
> and obtained a BS degree in Aerospace Engineering. Unfortunately
> for me the market for Aerospace Engineers took an extreme dive
> just before I graduated, so I have been working odd jobs here and
> there trying to find my niche. All this time I have save thousands
> of dollars performing a lot of my own maintenance and repairs on
> my own and friends vehicles.
>
> One job I held was at a small garage in Crystal, MN called DuMark's
> Garage. It was there that I was introduced to the system known as
> AllData. To be quite honest I was duly impressed. All you needed
> to know at your fingertips to repair almost any vehicle.
>
> Well I haven't worked for Rick Dukatz for a year and a half, but I do
> stay in contact. Recently I bought a 1993 Audi 90S and in my search
> for some advice on parts and repairs came across a site called The
> Quattro List. This format allows Audi owners to share ideas and
> advice with other Audi owners all over the world.
>
> So when someone on the list asked about the quality of the Alldata CD,
> I jumped in and said they were a great tool. How little I knew. I was
> bombarded with comments saying that the cd was next to worthless,
> the only good part of it was the TSBs. So I went to Rick and asked him
> if I could browse through his cd for my car just to see how much info
> it contained. Well, it looked pretty good to me, I only spent about 20
> minutes looking around, while shooting the breeze. So I responded
> back to my Audi comrades stating that the cd I looked at had pretty
> good information, even citing specific examples, like ohming up
> fuel injectors to test serviceability. Again I was deluged with comments
>
> stating that there was no such information on the Personal Edition of
> the Alldata CDs.
>
> SO, what's the deal. Why don't the Personal Edition CDs have all the
> same information as the Professional Edition. Quite frankly, I find this
>
> lack of information very insulting, it would seem that you consider the
> average person to stupid to effect proper repairs to his/her own
> vehicle.
> I can list quite a few individuals who are VERY dissatisfied with the
> Personal Edition CD, and at present there is NO WAY I would pay
> $25 for the CD. Please contact me when the Personal CD contains ALL
> of the information found on the Professional CD and I would be
> very happy to purchase your product.
>
> As can be seen, I have CC'd this e-mail to the Quattro List, I wouldn't
> be surprised if you get deluged with more e-mail from some very
> UN-satisfied Audi customers.
>
> --
> Todd Young WAM!NET Inc.
> tyoung@wamnet.com 6100 West 110th Street
> 612-886-5051 Bloomington, MN 55438-2664
> 800-585-1133 ext.5051 http://www.wamnet.com/