I have a new to me used Cat 305E2CR H5M with 1500hrs on the way and would like a service manual in advance to start studying things as i do my own repairs when possible and i like to do things by the book.. Ive found used ones on ebay for $600 and up and think thats crazy.
As a counterpoint to your statement above. Just my opinion. YMMV: -
1. A service manual is an asset in just the same way as the machine to which it refers. If at some future date you were to sell the excavator then you could sell the service manual separately and in all probability for close to the same price you paid for it.
2. Outside technician labour is currently selling at well North of $100/hr in an independent shop and closer to $150/hr in a dealer shop. So the manual is effectively the equivalent of 4-6 hours of technician labour. Once you're past that break-even point you're in a profit situation even if you do not count Point 1 above.
Are there any sources to get the service manual that are affordable? ..... Ive seen a few places online that claim they have the service manual for 45$ but not sure if thats a scam or not
The appropriate manual for your machine is Cat Publication UENR5696.
It currently retails new at $755 in paper form and $535 for exactly the same information in pdf format on a CD.
I cannot see anything genuine OEM for sale used at this time.
Let me attempt to shed a bit of light on service manuals and how they are constructed/assembled, etc, etc, by the OEM. The manual for an H5M machine comprises many hundreds of individual documents combined together to make the manual. There are 132 documents in the "Specifications" section alone. Some of those documents are common to other models, others could be unique to an H5M machine.
My experience of the "$45" online manuals is that the sellers go into the Cat online system and download each of those hundreds of individual documents separately in pdf format. They then try to assemble them into some sort of file system and put them on a memory stick or CD.
Where you roll the dice buying one of these offerings is that you are banking on them having done their job correctly and actually downoaded ALL the relevant documents.