I hope to buy the best repair resources for my 95 960 and have three questions.

First, I hear that I can buy the VADIS material on a CD or access through the internet? Where would I do so?

Second I also understand that the Green books are the best. Where are these available? Does anyone have these to sell?

Third, are there better resources available, and if so where? I have heard REALLY bad things about the so called CD's off eBay and would not consider these. I have Haynes and Chilton for this car. The Haynes if ok. The Chilton is basically useless, trying to cover every Volvo over a 10 year period.

Ideas appreciated.

Green books are Service Manuals. They ARE quite good in general compared to many mfrs. The electrical troubleshooting manual and the wiring diag manual are very good comparatively. The problem with the 'Green Books' are that it's broken up into a number of different manuals, so you'll spent maybe $125 getting together a basic collection. I got the B6304 engine manual, the Motronic MFI manual, the Wiring diag manual & the Instrumentation & Lighting manual. That's a good basic mix.

Now I also got Vadis. Vadis DOES contain the service manual data, but the pictures are not as complete as those in the Green books, nor is the quality of reproduction as good. What is there are some of the photos that are in the Green books along with most of the same textual info as supplied in the Green service manuals.

BUT, Vadis is MUCH more than just that. Vadis has all of the part database info. All the exploded views showing essentially all of the parts on the car, with P/N's, etc. This is EXTREMELY useful. It's all a question of how deeply you want to get into it.

Vadis was discontinued in 2005 or 2006 & replaced by Vida, but the data you see on the 'older' cars is essentially the same pictures & the same text, exploded views, etc. that was already done in Vadis. Vadis came on a DVD and was about a 6GB install to run everything from the HDD.

Thanks for the ideas. Do you have any idea where I can download the complete VADIS for free? I hear that the 2004 version 6 is around. Looking for a shareware site as I do not use my credit card on the internet.

Volvo has discontinued the Green Books for the 960's. At the Volvo site posted in this post, the 960 can be chosen, but the manuals report as unavailable.

With something close to 4.5GB to download in compressed form, that would be pain that would probably be fraught with annoying download errors. I wouldn't count on that being a realistic option.

I bought it on Ebay years ago. It turned out to be a copy as are any you will find now are going to be. Another minor complication is that it has a time expiration date coded into the package. I found this out this year when it started giving me messages saying that it had expired as of early 2010, but would continue to work for 1 more year till 2011.

My solution was to make dedicated car service laptop that doesn't go on the internet in general, and it's clock remains set to an earlier year.

I'm sure you will find a source for Vadis circa 2005 if you look around, but be aware that you'll be faced with these same limitations. I'm pretty sure you can find it for $20-30 if you look around.

Dear 960 Brickster,

Hope you're well. VADIS has been superseded by an on-line system. By 2007, when VADIS was phased-out, information on the 900 series cars had been displaced by that for newer models. Thus, if you can find a version of VADIS for 2005 or earlier, that would be best, as there will be much more information on 960s.

VADIS is designed to run on Windows XP and may not work on newer computers, if of the 64-bit variety.

The problem with the Volvo Tech Manuals is that they use the words "remove", without explaining how this is to be done. In some cases, it is obvious. In others, not. Even so, there is - as others have stated - no better source.

Hope this helps.

Yours faithfully,

Spook

Hi,

Vadis isn't very useful for a Volvo 960, there is very limited info on the model. It is best for newer vehicles.

From what I have seen, the green books are the best, followed by mitchels. The mitchels appear to be compiled from the green books.

Cheers

oh, and I might be wrong in your case about Vadis and your 960. I know for the 97 960 the only useful thing was the timing belt instructions. I never looked at pre-97 960 materials.

Thanks. I believe there are many different green books for different parts of the car. I do have the fault tracing green manual in pdf. How many different green books are there and where can these be purchased?

You can buy them new from Volvo at:
https://www.volvotechinfo.com/index.cfm

under the Store>Service Parts & Literature>Service Manuals pull-down menu

shipping is very fast.

Trying to buy used is all about luck. Tends to be easier to find ones for the 70's and 80's than for the 90's.

John

Hi,
Cant comment on VADIS but yes the GREEN BOOKS are the best. I looked at E Bay,Craigslist and every Volvo enthusiast website I could find for about a year before one was found in England of all places.
The bottom line is ,have patience and one will come along.
Cheers,
Dave

If you can afford it just buck up and buy the books new.

VADIS is available online as pirated software free, or on CD on eBay. I got one from Britain, the very last released cd disc version to dealers. It's OK. It's nice to get part numbers as well as exploded views. Don't spend too much but if you find it for like $5 then do it. Try eBay.co.uk and search vadis.
It runs on computers newer than XP. You have to right click and hit 'run as administrator' however.