Bestride.com has reviewed the new Hack Mechanic™ Guide to European Automotive Electrical Systems

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Craig Fitzgerald from Bestride.com recently reviewed The Hack Mechanic Guide to European Automotive Electrical Systems by Rob Siegel and The Bentley Publishers Technical Team and had this to say:

" I have spent many, many hours looking at wiring diagrams, and trying to diagnose electrical issues. The only vehicle I was successful with was — ironically — a 1970 Land Rover Series IIa, which was only simple to diagnose because there was like one wire in it.

All of those manuals, diagrams and user guides I pored over featured the style of writing you’d normally need to read the installation instructions on a garbage disposal to experience. Dry. Dull. Designed to induce sleep.

A book like this walks a fine line. You can easily dumb it down to the point where you’re insulting your reader with cartoon pictures of electrons, or just as easily overestimate the reader’s intelligence and attention span and write it like your core audience once built the Space Shuttle.

This one is billed as a guide to European automotive electrical systems, and it’s true that it does provide a lot of specific data on the idiosyncrasies of Volkswagen, Audi, BMW and any other Euro manufacturer that favors Bosch electrics. But that’s not to say that if you own an Austin-Healey that you won’t get a lot of it.

It’s also not just for people who have cars of a certain vintage. A ton of the information collected in the book covers how to diagnose and understand things like all the sensors that make a modern car go and stop.

The Hack Mechanic Guide to European Automotive Electrical Systems splits the difference. It’s an actual “book” with “chapters” featuring “engaging writing” that doesn’t make you want to stick your head in an oven. Each chapter covers a specific topic, but it’s broken up with tons of illustrations, and sidebars designed to either offer deeper information, to provide a warning, or to deliver an analogy that can help you sort through your problem.

It’s complex enough to cover modern electrical issues, but also never assumes that you’ve done any electrical work — or more accurately any electrical work correctly. Early chapters cover the basics of safety and automotive electricity, and most appreciated, how a multimeter actually works."

You can read the full review here: http://bestride.com/reviews/product-reviews/book-review-the-hack-mechanic-guide-to-european-electrical-systems

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