Hyundai: HMAService.com now requires paid subs

[Rylan]

Just went on the other day and saw the news. Kia might be the same fate.

That really sucks they are now requiring a paid membership to view their online materials. It was easily one of the main reasons I went on to owning more than one Hyundai.
And to top things off, its rediculously expensive to even view. I wonder if dealerships are now having to pay corporate licensing use on their publications too?

Good thing I printed a couple jobs I've done, but it now looks like I'll be buying a Haynes manual in the near future. However, I doubt Haynes will cover the Elantra Touring (wagon), and I couldn't even find a manual for the Accent (maybe try the Kia Spectra one?).
My local libraries carry them, which is good news. I'll check them out before I buy.

 

[daves87rs]

Bummer....

 

[actionstan]

Aww this is lame, I hope it doesn't happen to the kia tech site..

 

[John_K]

Darn I was hoping other companies would follow.

John

 

[RF Overlord]

Originally Posted By: Rylan
looks like I'll be buying a Haynes manual in the near future.
In my experience, Haynes manuals are one step above useless. Get the factory workshop manual.

 

[SteveSRT8]

Originally Posted By: RF Overlord
Originally Posted By: Rylan
looks like I'll be buying a Haynes manual in the near future.
In my experience, Haynes manuals are one step above useless. Get the factory workshop manual.


So true.

Factory manuals are surprisingly cheap on DVD's...

 

[Vikas]

only when purchased on ebay and DVDs have been hand-signed by its duplicator

 

[rationull]

That's too bad. Subaru charges for theirs as well but you can get a 3 day subscription for pretty cheap and download the manuals which does work out cheaper than buying the typical bound/paper manuals through a dealer.

How expensive is the Hyundai subscription? Didn't seem obvious through the site.

This is going to be a bummer next time my sister's Kia needs any work.

 

[stephen9666]

That sucks big time. That was one of the few things Hyundai had going for them.

 

[jim302]

This stinks. Free service info was something that set Hyundai and Kia apart from the competition.

Kia's site now says it is a fee based service as well, but I was able to get in with my old account so they must not be completely done making the changes yet. I took the opportunity to create PDFs of most of the service manual for my Optima as well as the electrical diagrams, so hopefully I dodged the bullet on this one.

If they are going to have a day pass or week pass at a halfway reasonable rate, I guess you could always purchase one and print all of the information you would ever need, but this is still less than ideal because it takes time and the resulting document dump is harder to navigate.

Service information should not be locked down... whether we're talking about cars, electronics, or anything else for that matter. I'm tired of hearing that something is not serviceable by the owner. I will be the judge of what I am and am not capable of doing, thank you very much.