I continue to strike out trying to get my hands on 2010 Mazdaspeed3 factory service manuals. No dealer seems to be able to get them for me and im told they wont be out until Q3 2010. I find it hard to believe that a manufacturer releases a car but makes it damn near impossible to obtain FSM's for them. 

Any insight into where I can get these? Dave?

Bonus points for anyone that can tell me why the hell Mazda changed the 2010 ECU language from the 2007-2009 language.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Todd

Try Mazda Motorsports: http://www.mazdamotorsports.com/

My job is to make service manuals, actually (but for the heavy trucks my company manufacturers, not as say a third party for an automaker like Bentley or Chilton). It's a little more involved than simply releasing a manual to the public right along with the introduction of a new car. I imagine our case is somewhat similar to the automakers. First off, we create and sell the manual per contract to the customer (the Mazda dealer or probably Mazda North America is the customer in this case). It's a long process which involves many steps of validation/verification. In our case the manual normally will end up available to the public but not right away - possibly years down the road and the public (shouldn't) need it till the vehicle is out of warranty anyway.

Also, the manuals are produced according to different echelons of maintenance - more involved tasks are not completed in the first manual release. Next, the manual is in a constant state of revision and update due to engineering changes, data inconsistencies, obtaining vendor data to break down their parts, etc. So to release it right away might get you a frustrating product. Then it takes time to actually print and publish them.

So that's most likely why Mazda can sell a car to joe public but the service manual isn't available on day 1.

Posted By Todd98SE on 01-29-2010 12:10 PM
Thank you for the insight yo vanilla. I know they will be available eventually to the end customer but how does the dealership figure out the repair process for particular part if no manual is available at that time? Do they have an electronic version or do they just wing it? Say you need to replace a rod or main bolt very early in the product life cycle. Where would you find the recommeded torque settings? Call the manufacturer I guess?

I know situations like this don't happen often i'm just curious how they would be handled.

Thanks,

I'm sure the dealers have a first release of the manual at least, and just about everyone does electronic manuals now so I bet Mazda does (we call them IETM's, Interactive Electronic Technical Manual).  Also they can call factory tech support, I remember when I was a service writer, even for cars that had been on the market for some time, the techs would spend a good amount of time calling tech support.
 

Todd, are you still looking for an FSM?