Good morning,
Well, I'll have my XTerra the first weekend in May. We're going away for a bit, hence the delay. I was perusing the xterraparts.com site and was aghast to see the going rate for a set of shop manuals for this truck. My Land Rover manuals were only $100. I'm also used to Honda manuals that only cost $60.
So what's the consensus here? Do most of you make do with a Haynes manual or have you sprung for the Nissan set?
Anyway, my thinking is, there's nothing I can't do with the right tools and the manual. I like to have the shop manual as a crutch, in case I get stuck, or need a torque spec.
Bogatyr

Considering the Haynes manuals are about 150 pages, and the Nissan manual is almost 2000 pages, the price may be justified.

Buying the service manual will pay for itself over time IMO, and much more info. than the Haynes. The dealerships around me charge $80 per hour for labor. So instead of paying 3 hours of labor, you could buy the service manuals instead and do it yourself. It will more than pay for itself overtime.
BTW, I just ordered one yesterday from Tweddle Litho Company 1-800-639-8841. $210 for the cd-rom wersion (cheapest I found). More info. can be found in your owners manual.

Alldatadiy.com is the answer for me... it's the factory manuals, TSB's, and any other updates, just like the dealers get. Codes, diagrams, troubleshooting trees, parts, pricing, labor estimates, it's all in there.

I have 4 subscriptions myself... spanning Mitsubishi, Gm, Ford, and Chrysler models. They are all very good and have saved me several hundreds, if not a couple thousand in expenses.

$25 for a year subscription, unlimited access to your model, and renewals are discounted. All Web based and fairly quick to get around in. Only problem I have is that it only likes Netscape browser (may just be my desktops).

Other than that, the Haynes/Chiltons guides are not too bad. Pictures are nice to have handy when you can't get online..

-=RB

(PS - they don't have 2002/3 models ready yet... I've asked, they won't give me a date for publication. Also, they are geared toward certified mechanics sometimes, so the Chiltons will help bridge the gaps sometimes.)