that is so true Dason. i mean, let's be honest... if all you want to do is look at the problem and then "study" the solution in the solution manual you're just fooling yourself and not learning anything. you need to work through it, struggle with it, go back to your notes, etc. and once you have something that you think may be the solution then yes, by all means, go and check. the best part with having that is, in my opinion, that you can re-trace back your own process and see exactly what it is that was giving you trouble. i remember when i started by veeeeery first intro to stats course i had trouble distinguishing permutation-like and combination-like problems. but because i would check my answer, go back, then check it again, go back again, etc. i ended up i think developing the intution for the famous question of "is order important in this problem?"
so yeah.... solution manuals are good... but if you only want it to look at the solution for the problem you're better off not doing anything at all because you're not going to learn much anyway...