Farming Co. Says John Deere Is Monopolizing Repair Market

https://www.law360.com/articles/1454988/farming-co-says-john-deere-is-monopolizing-repair-market

by cwwc • 5 years ago

210 103 5 years ago

law360.com

stevenharrison• 5 years ago

Source is paywalled, this might be better: https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/consumer-pro...

There's other tractor manufacturers, farmers don't have to use JD.

DamnYuppie• 5 years ago

The tech analogy is basically similar to those who have their tech stack as Microsoft .NET vs Go. You can switch but it isn't as easy as just buying all new equipment.

Another point is JD is far more than just tractors so if you run a farm you will have many large pieces of equipment which you paid millions for so not so easy to just go and buy new stuff.

randomdata4• 5 years ago

farmers don't have to use JD.

I have a bunch of different colours in my shed. The only appreciable difference I've noticed is that when I needed the service manual to fix something, the CaseIH dealer slapped a book down in front of me. The tech at the Deere dealer had to enter a password on a computer to decrypt it for me. Neither seemed terribly concerned about providing the information, though.

kentf• 5 years ago

Nilay Patel had a great interview with John Deere's CTO where he pressed him on the right to repair for farmers. Highly recommend the episode, and all decoder episodes, Nilay is a fantastic reporter and doesn't let his quests squeak away with half answers. https://www.theverge.com/22533735/john-deere-cto-hindman-dec...

assbuttbuttass• 5 years ago

I'm sure we on hacker news are more familiar with the tech side of right to repair, but farming is also a huge problem.

JD walked so that Apple could run

n4r92• 5 years ago

Absolutely; Apple is the well-known offender but the issue extends to medical equipment, white goods, televisions and probably a whole lot more. This really is about preventing monopolies and I've seen basically no tenable argument against strengthening right to repair laws.

all23• 5 years ago

white goods

    White fabrics, usually of cotton or linen.Household merchandise, as bed sheets and curtains, formerly made from white fabrics, but now often colored.Large household appliances, as ovens and refrigerators, formerly finished with white enamel, but now often colored.

     - American Heritage Dictionary

excalibur• 5 years ago

Text is accurate, headline is misleading. Deere has had this market cornered for a while and nobody has done anything to stop them.

Cthulhu_• 5 years ago

I'm sure we'll see a Tesla tractor (Teslactor? Tesla model T? Elon Deere?) being announced at some point, never to actually make it production. Built for farming on Mars. With gullwing doors and autopilot (I'm aware that modern tractors have autopilot too), made out of stainless steel.

nyxtom• 5 years ago

Believe it or not Lamborghini for instance does make a tractor that is pretty beefy https://www.lamborghini-tractors.com/en-eu/ I would not be surprised to see Tesla enter that market some time down the road

mfer• 5 years ago

nobody has done anything to stop them

Sort of yes and no.

No one has done anything to stop them just like no one has done anything to stop Apple or the other tech companies.

Farmers have done a lot of lobbying and other work around right to repair just to work on their equipment. This includes being apart of efforts with the Library of Congress for the exemption that comes up every so often. They've been there alongside people in tech circles.

coding1232• 5 years ago

So I'm gearing up to buy a Kubota FEL soon.

Two reasons we passed on JD FEL is 1) financing isn't as good 2) you have to pay JD a yearly maintenance package AND take it in once a year otherwise your warranty is shit. That could be incorrect and just one dealer we spoke to, but it didn't add up with the better stuff we're hearing from the Kubota side.

randomdata4• 5 years ago

Interestingly, all my neighbours who have tried them are back to running Green machines. A good friend is the mechanic at the Kubota dealership and he speaks quite highly of them, though.

May be a case of Deere getting aggressive. Another friend bought a new Steiger series tractor a few years ago and before it even showed up in his yard, Deere rolled in to make him an offer he couldn't refuse to trade it in.

abakker2• 5 years ago

I'm curious about the Value prop for an FEL. I bought a bobcat T590 last year because it had a lot of capacity - both PTO power and absolute ability to lift. It isn't good for turf, but I can pick up a 4000lb pallet. FELs all seemed to max out at ~1000 lbs for the same footprint.

is the bucket really just not the use case for a FEL anymore?

coding1232• 5 years ago

I think it is the use-case. I'm just working on my property. It's like a big lawn mower and landscaping tool. I am getting the backhoe so that I can do some light trenching work. I can also use it to plow through medium levels of bush in the way. Also good to help with spreading gravel or smoothing out a building pad. It's like - if you have a normal size house with 10k sq ft lot, you own a lawn mower. When you own 10 acres or more, you probably need a tractor of some kind.

edit: Sorry I see you were specifically discussing the FEL that can handle 4k vs 1k. Mostly Gravel is my largest use-case. I won't be able to pallet lift a ton of bricks, that is correct. But for the rest of the tool it's like a swiss army knife in that it has different attachments both on the front, the back (and the bottom).

rdudek• 5 years ago

Wonder how difficult it would be for some opensource startup to come out and make a simple Generic Tractor at low cost, low maintenance? I grew up on a small farm and the tractor we had was very basic. Didn't have any of the latest tech which has pathing and seeding controls.

7thaccount3• 5 years ago

I'm not a farmer, but this comes up a lot. Most modern farming (the type done for money commercially and not as a hobby)is fiendishly complex. The tractors are massive and are driven by GPS and have all kinds of massive machines connected to them.

If you want a simple and cheap tractor, you can find a Farmall from like 40 years ago and restore it easily for like a grand or two (at least my friends dad was still doing this in 2008).

Typically whenever a once competitive firm becomes a lazy monopolist, at some point others want to break in and get a piece of the profit pie. It could happen someday.

frankfrankfrank3• 5 years ago

Although I am not doubting you, I find it rather curious that you would describe tractors and/or other farm equipment as "fiendishly complex". I am not sure if there is a term or concept for this issue, but I get a strong sense from this whole concept that what is really happening is the generation of artificial and intentional complexity, if not just the perception of complexity. There is nothing inherently complex about, e.g., a tractor that has some method of automatic steering, locates itself by GPS, and follows a path set by coordinates and vectors.

Another aspect of what we are experiencing here I think is essentially a multi-level/nested con job that uses that artificial and perception of complexity to extract ever higher and compounding levels of what what are essentially rents.

The established industry players are banking on the high barrier to entry (heavy machinery production) and brand recognition (Runs like a Deere) to con the whole sector, and therefore extract wealth from the whole of society trying to feed itself.

Please feel free to challenge my perspective.

masklinn• 5 years ago

Typically whenever a once competitive firm becomes a lazy monopolist, at some point others want to break in and get a piece of the profit pie. It could happen someday.

The problem is, as in many other domains, a combination of opportunity cost and network effect.

Getting in the commercial farming game is going to be expensive as hell and gruelling as you try to get a foothold, and unlike, say, a car, your average farmer has a ton of equipment from the same brand which works together, and the more time passes the harder it becomes to interop (though I guess at least in farming you don't have too many patented hitches or PTOs these days?)

Not to mention in farming you really need to have a network on the ball for parts and repairs, if you fuck up a farmer's season by leaving them stranded for a week they're not going to be happy campers.

matthias509• 5 years ago

All the implements which farmers use, planters cultivators, etc have gotten larger over the years as the scale of farms have grown. A 40 year old tractor likely isn’t going to have the horsepower to work with these new implements. Also, the old tractor is likely to lack a cab which could mean no climate control for you.

Both of these would be serious issues for operating a modern, large scale farming operation.

syshum3• 5 years ago

https://www.opensourceecology.org/portfolio/tractor/

jonnydubowsky• 5 years ago

Thanks for sharing this. I remember checking it out a few years ago when Open Source Ecology first started doing their workshops. They've come a long way. I love how their system is designed to build modules to build machines to build more modules.

biorach2• 5 years ago

There are plenty simple low-cost tractors on the market.

However for large-scale agriculture where your tractor is pulling high-end machinery you need something very powerful and sophisticated. JD leads this market, and is a significant player in the mid-range also.

frankfrankfrank3• 5 years ago

Is there a reason that some Asian or even European competitors can't just come in and offer the same kind of features and services without all the lock-in, actively taking market share by being the anti-monopolist?

Maybe I'm missing something, but I can't see the brand loyalty to Deere lasting too much longer, especially if some of the Asian competitors can make offerings without all the shackling.

ChuckNorris892• 5 years ago

Because it's a heavily entrenched industry that's not easily disrupted, where each brand has carved it's on territory by geography and there's this silent gentlemen's agreement of "you stay out of my market, I stay out of yours and we all win" since even if the other competitor would attempt to come in the other market, it would face an uphill and insanely expensive battle just to enter the market, as in order to capture any market share it would need to undercut its competitor on cost while offering superior quality, while spending insane money on the supply chains and world class service and tech network which guarantees the up-time of your machinery, thereby weakening the profit margins not just for themselves but potentially the whole market.

So why would you want to do something as risky and foolish as that when you got a good thing going?

onion2k• 5 years ago

silent gentlemen's agreement

We assume it's silent but we probably shouldn't. It could be a boring old cartel. Someone should check.

giantg2• 5 years ago

I'm not sure which brands are owned by Deere, but there are quite a few available in the US, depending on scale. I specifically think that LS is foreign, but don't remember for sure.

gunapologist992• 5 years ago

Because it's a heavily entrenched industry that's not easily disrupted, where each brand has carved it's on territory by geography and there's this silent gentlemen's agreement of "you stay out of my market, I stay out of yours and we all win

Do you know that this is the case or are you speculating? It seems like there's an intense amount of competition, especially with imported farming equipment. (I have no idea if John Deere sells overseas or if it's mostly a domestic brand.)

Some other manufacturers that seem to have big branding in the U.S. are New Holland (just found out they're owned by Fiat.. small world), Mahindra, and Kubota. Are those all part of this cartel that you're alleging exists?

jevoten• 5 years ago

Because after you spend $N billion catching up to Deere's manufacturing and expertise, they'll suddenly realize that yes, it's essential that farmers be able to control and repair their own equipment, and will use their massive war chest built on unethical practices to undercut you.

And when you're out of business, they'll go back to their old ways.

biorach2• 5 years ago

It's not a monopoly. There are plenty of manufacturers in the market. However JD has significant, if not leading, market share in many markets along with being regarded as a premium brand, and has significant loyalty among a demographic where memories are long and loyalty counts.

They do make really really good machines, and their top-end gear is very highly regarded. All the above has allowed them to get away with some dubious practices. However farmers are also very cost conscious and there is growing dissatisfaction at the blatant lock-in.

wldcordeiro• 5 years ago

I imagine it's a smaller version of the American cars vs Japanese cars attitude that really peaked during the 70s and 80s. It's still around to this day where you meet people who are Chevy or Ford die-hards and hate all cars Japanese. Considering that trucks are often farming equipment and Chevy and Ford make trucks it would make sense people would have similar attitude about their dedicated farm equipment coming from John Deere vs Yamaha (a joke example since they make things from pianos to motorcycles.)

isk517• 5 years ago

Your probably on to something. I remember a lot of people getting excited when John Deere farm equipment was introduced into Farm Simulator 2019.

HeyLaughingBoy• 5 years ago

What's their incentive to do that when they could come in with a different lock-in now that it's been proven to be profitable to do so by JD?

I can't see the brand loyalty to Deere lasting too much longer

Here's an anecdote: if I go into Fleet Farm or Tractor Supply (farm supply stores), I see John Deere toy tractors, in fact my son has one: they're very well built. I don't think I've ever seen any other brand of toy tractor. That alone says a lot.

gunapologist992• 5 years ago

This view might not be very popular, so I want to preface it with: I am very supportive of the right of repair, especially when it's being used to force expensive proprietary repairs, probably from a long way away (I'm sure shipping a tractor isn't quite like shipping an iphone), or when it's used to enforce a sort of planned obsolescence when the manufacturer just decides to stop maintaining in order to force you to upgrade.

I'm curious, however, how much (in practical terms) John Deere would have to give or open up in terms of trade secrets in order to enable repairs (especially of super advanced stuff like fully autonomous farming), and to what extent they would need to open things up that offshore competitors might easily clone without having invested the millions (or billions?) that John Deere has already invested.

Put another way, right now, today, we have a farming equipment manufacturer based in the U.S. that is actually injecting some serious tech into a rather staid industry. John Deere seems to be turning into a highly innovative tech mfg company, in, ironically, one of the most expensive places to run a heavy equipment manufacturer.

I view them as a huge asset, developing what appears to be interesting ideas in what was a pretty tech-adverse industry, and fully automated farming is probably also a key component for food security across the globe, U.S. national security, international stability, and probably needs to be a part of any climate change conversation.

So, how much are we asking them to give up of their know-how where it might be cloned or worked-around by other companies?

In the immortal words of Dr. Ian Malcolm, "You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you even knew what you had, you patented it, and packaged it, and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now you wanna sell it."

What if FOTMA or Yucheng Dadi Machinery Co (https://sdycdadi.en.made-in-china.com/product/EvdncAtVZXkZ/C...) or something like that decide to clone the most advanced John Deere tractors with their new access?

If you are buying a quarter-million-dollar John Deere combine, you have probably already evaluated the rest of the industry and decided that the draconian DRM or whatever they're using is worth that very substantial investment. It's not like you might have just been browsing in the store for a $1 bottle of shampoo -- I'm sure you can't be a farmer without knowing, in detail, about this unable-to-repair problem with John Deere specifically, and might have even formed some strong opinions about it!

And if you decide that it's not worth it, then you would choose something else.. the market would punish John Deere for their overstep. (I'm not a farmer and have zero contact with this industry, but it seems that the Indian company Mahindra has pretty competitive pricing from a quick browse of tractor dealerships.) You could also sue John Deere if they were delivering a vehicle that wasn't performing according to their specifications, and ultimately their reputation would suffer. (It took thirty years for American auto mfgs to rebuild their reputation after the garbage they made way back in the 70's.)

The other thing where the market would help to fix this, without needing a legislative fix, is if a competitor steps up with an easy to repair tractor, like https://frame.work/ did for laptops. If this is a real problem, then some smart entrepreneur eventually will, even if they end up having their first tractors built in China. John Deere relies on the trust of farmers just as much as the other way around.

Just some food for thought. This seems to be a nuanced and very emotional issue for some people, but it does seem like there are at least two sides to this story.

Enginerrrd• 5 years ago

Honestly, they can keep a lot closed but still create modular designs and repairers win without giving away the farm.

If you don't want to pay John Deere for their fancy autonomous farming, that's fine. But you should be able to swap in a different control unit and not have to worry about your tractor simply refusing to run like a Keurig machine that refuses to run non-rfid tagged genuine k-cups.

Voids your warranty, sure, but I think you should be able to make that decision for yourself.

syshum3• 5 years ago

There is a double edge problem here.

Farming like almost every other industry is has been under massive consolidation pressure for the last several decades, small and medium farms being bought out by large corporations.

These large corporations have no problem with these changes at JD because they do not want to repair their tractors anyway, they outsource that to the dealers now.

These changes however do drive up the costs for independent farmers which the Corporate farms love because then they can either drive them out of business or buy them cheap...

wavefunction• 5 years ago

Couldn't a capable foreign rival just come to America, approach a local farmer and ask them for access to the tractor for long enough to derive whatever alleged trade secrets there are? Or even just buy one, either here or overseas and disassemble?

syshum3• 5 years ago

> John Deere would have to give or open up in terms of trade secrets in order to enable repairs

None... "Security" and "Trade Secrets" are largely red herrings to muddy the conversation and provide convenient cover for their true objective, anti-repair, or protectionism for their dealer network.

They can implement repairablity, api's and a whole host of other things to individual purchasers and independent repair with out sacrificing security or compromising trade secrets

simion314• 5 years ago

I think is easy to contradict your hypothesis, All the code and tools are not secret, local shops have them so you don't need some extremely clever spy to get their hands on them.

I seen a similar argument about Apple repair manuals , there is even more stupid since Apple sends in China the full blueprints to build the iPhones so there is no fucking way that making the repair tools and manuals public gives China,Russia or N Koreea something they can't already get.

DRM would only make sense if you rent the product so the owner would not want to let a random dude to change stuff, but if you are the owner then you should be able to read the error codes and have a competent person replace a part.

TL:DR the repair tools and manuals do not contain trade secrets, the argument is flawed.

kmeisthax• 5 years ago

All they need to do is...

- Allow people to buy genuine replacement parts at the same or similar pricing to what the OEM pays

- Publish information on what parts go where on the device and how to install them

- Don't make the device lock itself if it detects the user has replaced a device

None of this in and of itself implicates John Deere's ability to ship a competitive product or prevent cloning. My understanding is that other manufacturers would already have the ability and know-how to take their competitors' products apart and figure out how they work. Not being able to buy replacement parts or not having circuit board schematics doesn't really help stop that, because they can just buy the whole package and do their own reverse-engineering work from there. If you have competitors that can't do that, then they probably couldn't build a clone even if these companies were extremely repair-friendly.

all23• 5 years ago

This smells like the printer cartridge problem that HP and others have, where, if you replace the cartridge with non-HP, the printer will lock up and cease to function...

xondono3• 5 years ago

I have to say, I’m still very divided about right to repair.

I think it’s hard to keep a consistent world view where right to repair is a thing, and at the same time anything but open source is outright illegal.

toss12• 5 years ago

Why does a right to repair require open-source to be the only legal option?

It seems that I could have a highly proprietary device and still be able to repair it. It would just require availability of 1) documentation 2) diagnostics, 3) parts at market prices, 4) parts not locked by DRM code.

E.g., the iPhone could still have all their proprietary code, as long as I can read about the components and their relationships, diagnose a problem, replace a component and/or flash new data/code onto the device.

Same for a car or tractor. Meaningful repair doesn't require that we be able to dismantle and re-solder sub-board-level components, only identify the particular component, obtain it at a reasonable availability and cost, and replace it, or be able to substitute an upgraded part.

Am I missing something here?

xondono3• 5 years ago

the iPhone could still have all their proprietary code, as long as I can read about the components and their relationships, diagnose a problem, replace a component and/or flash new data/code onto the device.

As a group heavily populated by programmers and coders, I think it’s fairly hypocritical to say that everyone should make their IP like schematics freely available while we keep software under copyright.

Am I missing something here?

- How is a defect like an aged battery different than a non-updated software?

- Why is it inmoral for a company to limit your ability to swap a battery but totally okay to not give you the code so that you can patch their software to work on your machine?

At least in the case of the battery they can argue that inappropriate handling of faulty batteries is dangerous.

Meaningful repair doesn't require that we be able to dismantle and re-solder sub-board-level components, only identify the particular component, obtain it at a reasonable availability and cost, and replace it, or be able to substitute an upgraded part.

That “only” is doing a lot of work there. That “only” is the work of a lot of people who deserve to get good salaries too. Why should their work become a commodity while programmers keep their “machines” protected with the laws for art?

ClumsyPilot4• 5 years ago

You do realise that we had right to repair in the 80's? Domestic appliances, cars and tractors did not contain computers. There was no firmware. The whole issue comes from abuse of IT laws to destroy our individual right to personal property.

There is no 'copyright' on mechanical parts, anyone is free to make a copy, and you are free to buy them from anyone.

Even if a part is patented (which is a small percentage), the patent law spesifically allows anyone to build anything for personal use.

If I have to repair my toaster, and it contains a microcontroller, then I can buy that microcontroller but not the firmware. The firmware belongs to the manufacturer, even if all it does is have a time to eject bread. So my toaster is unrepairable if that chip dies. That toaster could never be patented, beucase there is nothing innovative.

ChrisLomont5• 5 years ago

You do realise that we had right to repair in the 80's?

There was no such right in the 80s, any more than there is now.

In both times you could repair what you or repair people obtained the skill to do. There was no inherent, moral right, and no legal right, then or now.

Also in the 80's plenty of domestic appliances, cars, and tractors contained computers.

https://www.autotrader.com/car-news/when-did-cars-get-comput...

https://www.haytalk.com/threads/what-year-did-the-computers-...

xondono3• 5 years ago

You do realise that we had right to repair in the 80's?

No we didn’t. In the 80s a lot of stuff was simply easier to repair, in part because you had less stuff to begin with.

You’re still free to repair whatever you want, but of course nowadays things are so complex that I’d require you an insurmountable amount of work. There hasn’t been any legal change, it’s just that the cost of repairs has gone up.

If I have to repair my toaster, and it contains a microcontroller, then I can buy that microcontroller but not the firmware.

More to my point. Why firmware vendor X can’t enforce copyright but Google can? We either have right to repair and no copyright (at least for code), or we have copyright for code and no right to repair.

fartcannon2• 5 years ago

The future of life on earth depends on there being no limitations on repairing, modifying, or extending the things we buy.

frankfrankfrank3• 5 years ago

On a related side note. I find that this is yet another topic that highlights the need for efforts to bring legislation back in line with Constitutional principles of being outcome, not method oriented; descriptive, not prescriptive.

What that may mean is that legislation would require, e.g., that anyone doing any business with the government or using any government/public services (e.g., GPS) must utilize technologies that are common and compatible with each other both physically (parts) and data (communications, controls, etc.).

We are facing a situation that was last encountered or at least recognized in the late 80s and 90s, where silos and cartels were starting to emerge that led to massive waste and pillage of at least the public coffers. That led to a wave of standardization efforts in the late 90s and early 00s. That wave seems to have started dying out and really needs to be revitalized.

conradev• 5 years ago

1000%

For example, California wants to electrify lawn equipment: https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/our-work/programs/zero-emission-lands...

There are a number of competing ecosystems of batteries. They each have a leaf blower that takes a different form factor battery:

https://www.ryobitools.com/products/details/46396029911

https://www.dewalt.com/products/outdoor/blowers/20v-max-lith...

https://www.milwaukeetool.com/Products/Safety-Solutions/Emis...

Batteries are expensive and use a lot of carbon to produce, so the world would be better off if these batteries were fully interchangeable.

aardvarkr• 5 years ago

Action like that would freeze innovation at a time when we want to keep pushing the boundaries of what is possible. All three of those systems use different voltages or designs that change power output and weight distribution. On top of that, each brand is incentivized to keep experimenting to improve the battery design for their specific use cases. Dewalt, for example, is making lawn mowers that use two of their 20v batteries in parallel so you can use the same batteries in your mower as you do in your drill. The Ryobi batteries haven't changed since they were first introduced so the old drill that you bought in 2014 is still usable with today's batteries.

alfalfasprout• 5 years ago

The problem is that such an approach requires a fair bit of nuance to get it right and not stifle innovation. For example, the last thing anyone wants is the establishment of super slow to change standards that bring everyone to the "lowest common denominator".

I believe that simply requiring certain standards to have a freely available specification + right to repair will get us in a good place.

Cupertino95014• 5 years ago

On agricultural issues: be careful about making assumptions.

I was talking about the labels on fruits (you know, those labels you just peel off so you don't eat them) with someone who knew about this sort of thing . I ignorantly said "that's gotta be a low-margin business."

He said, "Actually, it's a high-margin business."

If you get a monopoly in some market that's very difficult to enter, you've got yourself a steady cash flow. I don't think "repairing tractors out in the middle of nowhere" is a very easy one to get into.

throwawayboise2• 5 years ago

I understand the tractor repair example to some degree, though "difficult to enter" in the case of Deere is largely because Deere is making it difficult.

But how is the market for fruit labels difficult to enter?

AlbertCory3• 5 years ago

Well, I can only speculate, not having tried.

It could be that the farmers & handlers already know the main suppliers and they're satisfied with them: low prices, good service, acceptable quality. And they're not looking for even lower prices.

If you have a monopoly and you've ridden the learning curve far enough that you're making a good profit while not pissing off your customers, and the market is pretty static, you're in.

But I could be wrong.

Frost1x• 5 years ago

People tend to overestimate how reasonable it is to become a real competitor. Just because someone's sitting on a fluffy market with fat margins doesn't mean competition will just fly in and regulate pricing structures down for consumers.

Typically, quite the opposite happens and investors and entrepreneurs see the opportunity to compete, but quickly discount it because the risk to compete is too high relative to barriers to entry. As long as your barriers to entry are high enough, a bonus if on of the barriers is capital intensive (time is something many can sacrifice but capital can be conjured out of thin air), you're going to be nearly impossible to dethrone by a competitor coming in.

You can usually spot competitors a mile away approaching the outermost mote your castle has and head them off early, perhaps establish an early friendship, or acquire them at a low cost before they get anywhere near the crown jewels. The trick is to get the foothold and momentum in a market. After that it's difficult for competitors to actually compete unless you're asleep at the wheel.

MisterTea• 5 years ago

I don't think "repairing tractors out in the middle of nowhere" is a very easy one to get into.

Not as hard as you think (I've worked on cars, vans and even semi trucks). By the local Autozone (a chain of automotive parts store) there is a man who repairs cars on the street out of a an old, short school bus. He also does house calls. He has a generator, air compressor, welder, jacks, engine hoist, all the tools needed, and even some parts. Same setup would enable tractor repair with the addition of some heavier tools to handle the larger bolts and so on.

John Deere is electronically locking their equipment so no one but them can figure out whats wrong or reset/clear error codes to restore normal operation. It's just shenanigans.

bluGill• 5 years ago

Every tractor comes with a display in the cab that tells you what the code means. This display is populated from the same database that goes into John Deere's dealer service tool. I wrote some of that code. (I don't speak for John Deere of course)

The only thing you cannot do without a dealer is replace a ECU. This is part anti-theft, and part to ensure you don't mess with the emissions.

dogman144• 5 years ago

Omaha has had a relatively robust tech meetup scene for a while because of stuff like this and interesting open source projects come out of the region+. The tractors have as much SW in them as a car does these days, and it was locked down to repair except by the manufacturer.

thereddaikon2• 5 years ago

John Deere is a symptom of a wider problem in regards to right to repair. Legally speaking there is a lot of progress that needs to be made in the realm of consumer electronics. But for vehicles be they road cars or tractors it can all be fixed with one good federal court case. What John Deere, and Tesla and most automakers are trying to do is basically circumvent the Sherman Act through an abuse of copyright law. SCOTUS has been pretty crappy on tying lately and has raised the bar, the opposite of what should be happening. But it seems right to repair is gaining a lot of broad political support so hopefully that will soon be undone.

dawsmik• 5 years ago

Then Congress should step in. This seems like something that would get bipartisan support.

thereddaikon2• 5 years ago

A new law could work but I feel like this should be able to be solved on the judicial side because its already illegal. We just have another case of the law not being enforced.

vishvananda• 5 years ago

I hadn't been following the "Right to Repair" movement too closely until I discovered that NordicTrack recently locked their users out of Privileged Mode[0], which makes it virtually impossible to install 3rd party software like Netflix on my treadmill. I just want to watch a video while I exercise!

[0] https://www.wired.com/story/nordictrack-ifit-treadmill-privi...

Farming Co. Says John Deere Is Monopolizing Repair Market

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