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Factory Service Manual

48K views 79 replies 35 participants last post by  denissh 
#1 ·
Does anyone know if the Ascent factory service manual is available and where it can be had?
 
#2 ·
Per @Rgashton and @Robert.Mauro :

"The link for the service manual and other PDFs is: https://techinfo.subaru.com/stis/#/login

Robert.Mauro pointed me to it. It's a paid subscription for it, but ANYONE can get access. I paid for the 3-day subscription, $35, and it has been well worth it I think. It has repair steps, diagnostic steps, wiring diagrams, harness locations, measurements and specs, etc. It is VERY detailed. I like to work on our vehicles myself when I'm able and usually buy Chilton type service manuals, but this is straight from Subaru and obviously much more specific.

I will say, it is a total PITA to download the entire Service Manual PDF though. It's just monotonous and broken up into countless chapters and sub categories. It has a little bit of a learning curve to figure out the best way to download and keep organized but it was fairly straight forward after I got the hang of it.

There are a couple large chapters that Safari and Chrome (I use a Mac) could not deal with, but FireFox worked perfectly. All in all, it took me roughly all day to get almost everything related to the Ascent. And the service manual was 90% of that time. If you have other Subarus you'll probably want to get those service manuals too, lol.

You can either print it out immediately (there's a "Print" button within the website's app) or you can "print" it to/as a PDF. That's what I did. Once it's on my computer as a PDF, I have a digital copy and can now print it out whenever I want. I'm thinking of taking the Service Manual files to the store to print it out and bind it into a book. I definitely think it is worth the $35."
 
#3 ·
Per @Rgashton and @Robert.Mauro :

"The link for the service manual and other PDFs is: https://techinfo.subaru.com/stis/#/login

Robert.Mauro pointed me to it. It's a paid subscription for it, but ANYONE can get access. I paid for the 3-day subscription, $35,
Yes this is the same as always, I guess. On the Outback forum, there are links to free versions for the differnt years. I have both 2005-2006 for my cars. I suppose I will pony up. I doubt I will ever own an Ascent. All I really wanted was the (2) procedures for the front and rear sway bar bushings. I was not able to get great pictures off the local dealer Ascent. My design software program is on the glitch and I need to produce install instructions for CKE SSP bushings.

I just thought the FSM would have some diagrams and procedure as well as torque settings. It would be a quick and dirty way for me to put something together.
 
#6 ·
Someone eventually seems to reassemble the service manuals, often with the links "corrected" for the new format, and offers them online. No idea who, how, why or if it's authorized.
 
#51 ·
Is there a list available of the specific PDF files to download for just the ascent? I have gone on once for my $35, and downloaded many files which wound up being for the outback. I do not mind paying for access again, but I would like to be able to focus directly on the complete complete file set for the ascent without guessing which ones I need.
 
#7 ·
Links don't work in bound physical books, so I'm fine with following the links the old fashioned way, flipping pages, lol! :grin: :tango_face_wink:

Plus if I was looking at this stuff on a computer or phone or tablet while I was working on the car, I am sure I'd need a service manual for that device after I destroy it from a part from the car, haha!
 
#25 ·
Right. Because things change. It is the only way to make sure you have the most up to date info.
I've never heard of, until now, revisions to factory service manuals (FSM). I've seen amendments to the FSM thru TSB or alike.

The online access or electronic documents are just something that every industries is moving toward. There are less and less need of paper copies these days ... just a technological progression.
 
#26 ·
I've never heard of, until now, revisions to factory service manuals (FSM). I've seen amendments to the FSM thru TSB or alike.

The online access or electronic documents are just something that every industries is moving toward. There are less and less need of paper copies these days ... just a technological progression.
Does Subaru not offer this as a book you can purchase? Only online access?
Actually, it's kinda better than that. Trey hits upon a lot of it. For $35, you can access everything (for 3 days) on the car (and on many many more Subies), and download it all. Most of the stuff is already in PDF form. In the case of the FSM, it's HTML with a print option that will allow you to print to PDF via most browsers.

Then, there's the amendments, changes, and TSBs. Those are separate documents, which can also be downloaded.

The only downside is that amendments to the FSM that happen after the 3 day access ends need additional access to get to.
 
#12 · (Edited)
I paid $35 today for access to 3 days of downloads of the service shop manuals for Subaru from techinfo.subaru.com. I chose to download 2008 STI, 2016 WRX, 2018 Outback, and 2019 Ascent.

The reason I mention this is because there are also other downloads available and one was particularly interesting: pages and pages of corrections to the Ascent service manual. Subaru must have made some changes along the way in the manufacturing process of the Ascent.

I also frequent the Outback forum, and those people are livid about the terrible infotainment unit in the 2018 Outback. When the original head unit fails customers are getting refurbished units from Subaru. They are not a happy bunch! I will be visiting my dealer soon, because I have the same problems others are experiencing. That is the main reason I downloaded the service manual. Ascent owners should be thrilled Subaru completely redesigned the system in the Ascent.
 
#13 ·
I paid $35 today for access to 3 days of downloads of the service shop manuals for Subaru from techinfo.subaru.com. I chose to download 2008 STI, 2016 WRX, 2018 Outback, and 2019 Ascent.

The reason I mention this is because there are also other downloads available and one was particularly interesting: pages and pages of corrections to the Ascent service manual. Subaru must have made some changes along the way in the manufacturing process of the Ascent.

I also frequent the Outback forum, and those people are livid about the terrible infotainment unit in the 2018 Outback. When the original head unit fails customers are getting refurbished units from Subaru. They are not a happy bunch! I will be visiting my dealer soon, because I have the same problems others are experiencing. That is the main reason I downloaded the service manual.
Very interesting. So is the service manual on its own not updated with the corrections and have to download separately? If so, I might hold off until it's updated in 1 document versus having to look through several...
 
#15 · (Edited)
Can anyone help? Who has the FSM

I am looking for (2) procedures.

Front and Rear Sway Bar replacement. A little overkill, but it's sure to cover the bushing replacement, body side. I will never own an Ascent, I will likely not wrench on one until the warranties expire. I am looking to save $35 on the FSM download.

Please, someone open-source these (2) for me from the FSM. PM or email me PDFs. Cloudlinks, ... post a picture here ... whatever. I have 7 sets of bushing out to members here, without install instructions. Even though, it s simple monkey-work. I resemble that remark, I know. However, folks like instructions, or You-Tube videos.

Help this dog out. Someone.
 
#23 ·
Wait, are you saying that the whole thing is finally available as one file? Please say yes.
 
#27 ·
Bad news. It's not the full manual, but the online access. You can print out each chapter to PDF. You'll have to watch out for the Engine, Engine Diagnostics, and Wiring Diagram chapters. They're huge, and sometimes the web browser would choke on all that information. I had better luck with Safari for those sections. I managed to create multiple PDF's of the whole manual last weekend.
 
#28 ·
I had the same issues when I tried to get the FSM for my Outback. Several of the downloads would cut off. I ended up with very little for my $. However, now both my 2005 and my 2006 are available for free in a condensed download.

Whoever did that, thank you.

maybe several of you that have it can do the same and possibly the admins can sticky it.
 
#31 ·
I will wait till after my Ascent arrives to download but I am hoping my Acrobat Pro will work.


From some research:



The issue with using "Save As PDF" from the print menu is that it takes PRINT data and converts it to PDF. Obviously, hyperlinks are not something that print data concerns itself with.**

To retain links, you need to use an application's own PDF EXPORT, if it has one. (i.e., not in the Print dialog's PDF button, but under the File menu.)


** Though there is a supposedly true story of an artworker being screamed at by a client because he couldn't produce interactive links on a printed page.
 
#36 ·
Here's how...



As of yet, Subaru hasn't published the whole thing in downloadable fashion. You can get an STIS membership for three days and grab whatever parts you want though (or the whole thing) - but you need to do that piecemeal.

Here's the link:
 
#38 ·
I have the files. Sadly, I can guarantee you, it will be ridiculously difficult to make a single usable pdf.

The whole thing needs to be re-edited, and hyperlinks needed to be added back to the right places. The pdf generator is great to grab a few pages or sections for reference, but the content is really geared for online view, and breaks when output as pdfs.
 
#40 ·
Bumping this for the awesome info. All the accessory installation instructions are available for free there just fyi. The Owners manual and Warranty and Maintenance guide are extremely lacking in info for even basic maintenance. I'll probably subscribe and download the service manual. Unless someone already has the files available....;)
 
#43 ·
FWIW -
I downloaded the manual from STIS (https://techinfo.subaru.com/stis/) by printing a PDF of each chapter (process already explained above I think) and used Adobe Acrobat Pro to pull all the pieces together into a single PDF. The problem initially was that Acrobat Pro defaults to using the filenames as the bookmarks and since I had 76 files with essentially the same name, that made for rather useless bookmarks! So....here's what I did (with a lot of help from a Ruby language expert!) to make it a little more useful.

Please don't ask me to help you set up Ruby in your environment or support this script - purely here for your intellectual amusement!
I wrote/modified a Ruby script that looks into the PDF and renames the file based on the title on that page. My files were named identically except for an index number appended to the end of each, so they alphabetically sorted based on the sequence they would appear in the finished manual.

Basic operation:
  1. Script called with path to the folder containing all the chapter PDFs
  2. It sorts the files by filename
  3. Then for each file, it extracts the text of the file (using a Ruby gem called 'pdf-reader' which you'll need to install if you don't already have it installed)
  4. Then parses the text of the first page starting at line 4 (I noticed that all the PDFs had some header text that occurs in first 3 lines, so I'm skipping those).
  5. Then goes to the next line containing text (which should generally be the title heading for most of these files) and extracts that line.
  6. Cleans up some special characters which sometimes appear and could mess up the following operation
  7. Then renames the file as <index>_<title heading>.pdf where index is a number
I had to do a little bit of filename cleanup after that based on a couple of abnormal files, but that was it. Then when I combined these with Acrobat Pro, the bookmarks had meaning and had the index number at the beginning. I can add to that later or modify these bookmarks, but now I have a much more usable manual. I had to rename the file to add ".txt" to end so forum let me upload it...doesn't matter to operation.

Hope that helps someone! :geek:
1861
 

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#44 ·
I finally got around to getting a 3 day pass to the STIS and downloaded the manuals for my Ascent and my daughter’s Forester. Thanks for the tips on using Firefox. MS Edge on the wiring diagrams would just sit there spinning its wheels and I would eventually have to crash out of it. I also used a free pdf writer by CUTE that helped a lot too.

I found that you could list all the DTC trouble codes but I could not figure out how to print them.
 
#45 · (Edited)
Linux or mac folks can download each "chapter" with a few hacks and wget. It is a bit of a pain but it seems to work. For example if brake is chapter s405, you mirror that page with a cookie you grab from first going to the site via a browser.

or



You'll need to figure out what all chapters to download. I have yet to figure out where they start and end or how to get a list of them without going to each chapter manually.

It seems like it is going to end up being something like sa01.html through sa09.html and s001.html through s999.html with many exclusions in here, possibly some other stuff missing other than that.

One thing I noted, and maybe this is by design, the hyperlinks in the printable version of the file do not work.
Where it says, for example:
075501

The correct link is:
s075.html#s075501

This is something that could be fixed with some additional scripting.:cool:
 
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