TIS factory manuals a thing of the past?

[uhmgawa]

Apologies in advance if this is a FAQ but I couldn't find an answer in my rummaging around here.

My "new" 4runner is an '06 and at the time I was able to extract the associated full factory manuals using a 1 year TIS subscription I had at the time. Now that vehicle is getting up in years and I've been considering a new 4runner. Still dealing with the price shock, but more critical is availability of factory service manuals for a prospective new vehicle. I seem to recall back somewhere around 2008 hearing Toyota was making it more difficult to obtain then current vehicle factory manuals and I'm unsure what the situation is Today. I don't mind paying for the manuals outright or painfully downloading bit by bit as I'd done before. But my now vague recollection is neither may be possible for mere 4runner owners at present.

Any insight to the current state of FSM availability would be most appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[uhmgawa]

Any insight to the current state of FSM availability would be most appreciated.

I see TIS still exists and offers 2/30 day subscriptions. So a more precise question would be in what form can the manuals be retrieved? Back when (~2006) I'd done so it was a tedious process but I ended up directly with a riot of PDFs which simply needed to be stitched together to create a PDF manual.

I seem to recall discussion (~2008) stating the format changed to SVG, and back then some logistical issue existed with conversion to PDF. Although that probably is workable today. So what I'm really asking here is of anyone who has taken this route to extract a vehicle service manual, in what form is the doc presented and what gyrations were involved to get it into a relatively usable / printable form?

Thanks!