We're living in the information age. Information is readily available everywhere. However when we want specific information that relates to our work, do you know where the best place is to start looking?
Remember, we've learned that information comes in various formats including:
We can divide this information into different content categories including:
Vehicle information
The first place to start looking for information about a vehicle, is in the workshop.
Shop manuals, aftermarket manuals and owner manuals are good reference resources for basic service information, including:
Manufacturers training videos usually provide specific information about a vehicle of a particular make and model. Similarly, videos from aftermarket and components suppliers will give us specific information about their products. We can also get this information from their CD-ROM's and web sites. Automotive hobbyists, enthusiasts and car club websites are other good reference sources available on the internet.
Spare parts
For spare parts information, parts manuals can give us a list of all components and part numbers in a vehicle. This information is also avalable on Microfiche. Microfiche is a sheet of microfilm containing images of printed materials. Its more compact than the printed format. One sheet of microfilm can contain as many as 64 pages or more of printed manuals.
However, Microfiche is being phased out, and has largely been replaced by new technologies such as CD-ROM's and the internet.
Automotive principles and technology
Textbooks and workbooks provide an overview of basic operation theories of automotive systems and components. This information is also available on videos, CD-ROM's and the internet. We'll need to subscribe to the educational institutions or training companies web site to be able to enrol in their courses.
Latest innovations and topical subjects
We can find information about the latest innovations and topical subjects in the automotive industry from
Troubleshooting
For troubleshooting there's help available on the phone and on the internet. To use both resources, we'll have to be subscribed members. With a hotline number we can ring experienced technicians who will do the research for us and come back with the solutions for our automotive problems.
We can also look up the aftermarket websites for diagnosis, repair, and parts number information.
For free to air information there are chat rooms and bulletin boards where we can post questions to other technicians online, although there is no guarantee of the accuracy and availability of the resources.
In this topic we've learned about the various resources we can use to look up automotive related information including:
