Right to repair

I'm seeing news that Deere has agreed to agree to right-to-repair with certain caveats such as altering safety devices.

Wasn't someone suing them over that issue? Maybe they lost the law suit or decided not to fight it?

Does a Memorandum of Understanding between JD and Farm Bureau carry any real weight in a court of law? It sounds like a stalling tactic on the part of Deere to avoid real regulation by the states or the feds. FB is pretty much a paper tiger.
JD FB MOU

Doesn t really change anything. Deere has offered a customer version of their Service Advisor software for a few years now.

Does it make sense for a customer that has a single unit to purchase it? Probably not. For a customer that has a fleet and a competent mechanic, possibly. Service and diagnostic manuals have always been available to purchase for those that wanted them. And yes the dealer has to pay for those resources too.

Note: Competent mechanics are hard to come by. Even at a dealership.

Second note: On today s farm equipment, unlike cars, most of the time the fault code that pops up on the screen gives a pretty good hint as to what the problem is. Any idea how many owners/operators just acknowledge the fault and keep on going until the machine doesn t work any more?


Hint - More than you think.

People should support their local dealers or dealers will go out of business.
Then where they get parts and service.
A farmer about a mile away buys new tractors and trades in his relative new tractor often.
He farms over 4000 acres.
For the most part he hires people to operate his equipment. He manages the farming.

I have a JD 317G compact track loader, which is the only diesel I have which has any exhaust catalyst, or whatever it is, on
there. I've had it a couple of years. This past summer it started messing up. I took the muffler to a local diesel shop which
bakes them out, or whatever it's called. It didn't run long before messing up again. A good friend got his young grandson-in-law,
who works at a JD dealer, to come out with his computer. He was here maybe an hour doing his magic, and it's been great ever
since. He said I didn't want to know what the dealer charges for that service. I told him I already knew that, and that's why I
was handing him a $100 bill! So, one way or another, it gets done. A long as you know someone.

local dealers??????

around here both the green and red dealers are huge mega dealers with stores allover the place and you cannot deal with them at all. here's the price.


I've know a couple guys that have driven to Kentucky and Georgia to pick up a new deere and with the extra freight still saved $#0,000's

I'm glad they are at least talking about it. however, almost ALL equipment if used in a commercial application must be serviced by a dealer and/or use only factory parts including oil IF you want to keep the warranty. Non commercial use like your own personal mower or car/truck does not fall into that category. Farming is a commercial enterprise so new tractors would fall into that warranty class.

(quoted from post at 15:32:54 01/09/23) I have a JD 317G compact track loader, which is the only diesel I have which has any exhaust catalyst, or whatever it is, on
there. I've had it a couple of years. This past summer it started messing up. I took the muffler to a local diesel shop which
bakes them out, or whatever it's called. It didn't run long before messing up again. A good friend got his young grandson-in-law,
who works at a JD dealer, to come out with his computer. He was here maybe an hour doing his magic, and it's been great ever
since. He said I didn't want to know what the dealer charges for that service. I told him I already knew that, and that's why I
was handing him a $100 bill! So, one way or another, it gets done. A long as you know someone.

Click to expand...

He was VERY generous to work for you for $100/hr.

I think the days of dealing for a new car or truck are over.
You take what is on the dealer's lot and pay what they are asking. The dealer is selling the vehicles they make the most money from.
It may take a few years for things to return.
I'm not holding my breath.

with all the new fancy stuff plus the mandated stuff added to farm tractors today and the cost of the computers and soft ware a small guy can't stay up on it . And can not afford to even try. I swore i would never own a scan tool , well i lied years back after having and ISSUE with a car dealer over our one car and being loed to i bought a Snap On soluse (s p) good to 2008 . Then learning how to use it for and old goat was fun. Then we got a newer car and Oh wait it does not go and work on it and needs upgraded , CHA CHING bend over . BUT the snap on guy would take it in on trade for a new 5800 dollar one that would work for a LITTLE WHILE till the NEXt upgrade came along and for just 1200 more bucks we could up grade for that new model year . I feel sorry for the young guys tryen to get started in the trade and the cost they have to lay out for the CHUMP CHANGE they are paid and you are ALWAYS needing to BUY more tools to do your job . I know what i have put out to have what i need . Many years back i managed to buy out 90% of a I H dealerships service dept's special tools for I H tractors going back to the letter series up to the early 88 series . With only a couple tools missing and i know where they went . So i went looking for these other items and went to several other closing I H dealer sales LOOKING . and found MOSt of what i was looking for . What i did not get was the other tool needed for my flow rater to work on the closed center Hyd. as the one had two of them and what they went for was way over what i could afford , where i messed up that one day was one of the two laptop computers for the Magnum tractors , they cost the dealers over 10 grand a piece PLUS UPDATED soft ware and they were up to date at the time . they only brought 5-650 . I get advertisements for H D laptops for HD app.s all the time ranging in price of 4500 on up to over 10000 bucks . That tqakes a lot of service calls to justifie . Now not sayen i am OLD but when i first started twinen wrenches at a Chrysler Plymouth dealership the flat rate labor rate was customer pay was 7.50 and HOUR and i made 3.75 and hour flat rate , warranty work was 6.25 and and we got HALF and grumbled about Warranty work . As you learned you could beat flat rate on some jobs and then there were the ones that fought you from start to finish. Not having the parts needed to do the job was a killer , as we would say drive them in and push them out . As you did not get paid till the job was done . Then working in a big dealership with a bunch of mechanics sometimes the special tools ya needed were being used by someone else and you had to WAIT or ya BOUGHT your own More cost to you to do your job. Now labor rate is pushing up over 125 and hour and the guy doing the work sure does not see anyplace close to HALF and not even close to 1/4 . I was told by a few i never charged enough , i charged a FAIR price and was kept busy .

> People should support their local dealers or dealers will go out of business. Then where they get parts and service.

Out west, the nearest dealer might be 100 miles away or more. Figure out how much a service call might be just to clear an error code on your tractor, and you'll see there's a powerful incentive to do it yourself.

(quoted from post at 07:46:39 01/09/23)
Any idea how many owners/operators just acknowledge the fault and keep on going until the machine doesn t work any more?

Click to expand...

That's no different than from before there was a computer to tell you what was wrong. Machine starts making a funny vibration that only you can feel because you've operated it so much that you're "in tune." Talk to the service manager, he shrugs his shoulders, says "I dunno. If you want to bring it in it will cost $7000 for us to tear it apart and we might not find anything." 10 hours later the IPTO driveline grenades.

Standard operating procedure in that situation is to run it until it won't go anymore, so they have something to fix when they tear it open.

I nearly got killed because of their safety devices. Had a wheel drop in a hole an armadillo dug and the tractor went to tip over and because my weight leaned in the seat the motor shut off. I needed to back up out of the hole and without the motor running that was pretty difficult. After a while I was able to maneuver my weight where I could re-start the tractor and was able to back out. First thing I did was take it to the shop and bypass the sensor in the seat.

> I nearly got killed because of their safety devices.

I don't think JD will be persuaded by your argument to support machinery owners disabling safety devices.

There will come a time when your tractor is a "subscription". Get used to it, or get out of the biz.

I don't get a fair price for my beef, so I gots no sympathy.

And...........I'm contemplating getting out of the biz altogether. I can make decent money in the market without putting up with the BS.

Pretty damn sad, ain't it...................

Up to the time of this lawsuit I think JD sold physical tractors made of steel & rubber. But claimed the intellectual property rights of onboard computers, computer software installed on the tractor was theirs, perhaps thru company patents or copyrights on computer apps or code their technology employees wrote. I don't have a horse in this race, but just appears this way. On some of their newer combines the computer on the machine will call the J D dealer automatically on the internet and say a malfunction code is present on such & such part of the machine and needs this part replaced to be fixed. Then dealer knows what the problem is at the same time or before the machine operator.

That's several times what he makes at the dealer.

The blue prints, manufacturing processes, service and operator's manuals have always been intellectual property covered by patents and copyrights.

How much of the push for Right To Repair is an effort to get manufacturer's to pay for owner's modifications gone wrong, operator errors, accidents, and other screw ups made after a machine has been delivered?

Shutting the equipment down for repair when a problem is first detected can prevent the additional damage done when things grenade. Should the dealer or manufacturer be responsible in your example where the owner chooses to run a machine to destruction?

Respectfully, you don't have a clue.

It's about having the ability to diagnose problems with sensors. Sensors have made newer equipment a minefield.

Sadly, and this is an aside...............a good deal of problems are mechanical.............but that's another thread.

So............................in your estimation, we should live with a machine that isn't serviceable when it craters. I find that incredibly disgusting. I paid good money for the thing. Thought I owned it. And, thought that anything that went wrong with it, was on my dime. And, because it was on my dime...............the repairs fell on my shoulders.

If you make a living with this sh!t, you need to be able to repair it.