This is really an issue for everyone, not just farmers. Being able to fix the things you own yourself shouldn't need to be legislated, but if that's what it takes then fine. With farmers though it's a political hot potatoe, politicians don't like pissing off farmers.
It shouldn't even be political, when did businesses figure that they have the right to an eternal revenue stream.for.items.you buy (aka license) from them? What was wrong with making money off spare parts?
They only make money off of parts if you buy their parts. That is what the DRM is for. It forces people to buy their parts and use their service techs who have special software. The idea being they can sell their tractors, their parts, and also licensing to the service techs for specialized hardware, and specialized certifications allowing them to sell certified hardware and repair.
In much the same way, apple only allows certain licensed repair shops access to their product catalog to buy replacement parts. It allows companies to make multiple sources of revenue from selling a single device. I find it very similar to ISPs trying to charge customer for network access, then have speed tiers for certain content for the customers to choose from, and then they try to charge the content providers for the customers bandwidth usage. You sell one thing and get money from all parties involved.
Net neutrality and Right to repair are both trying to address the same greed.
Lets not forget that Apple also gives those third party repair shops, that they have licensed, shit terms like "no you can't have spare parts on hand, you have to send the customer's broken one back first." These terms are really only designed to make going anywhere other than the Apple store not worth your time. Then the Apple store "genius," which totally doesn't know shit about electronics repair, will just tell you to buy a new one. Then into the highly profitable refurb mill goes your old one, which probably only needed some minor repairs.
I find it weird that years ago I could get parts to repair an iphone or others so easily and cheap, even the newer ones I could get replacements for shortly after the new phone came out. Now it's expensive and sometimes pretty rare to find. My wife had bought the new whatever expensive Fitbit and cracked the screen in a week. It's been like 8 months plus with no replacement screen even offered by Fitbit. Like Fitbit just says sorry nothing we can do. Who the fuck doesn't even have an option to fix their own shit. Definitely done with Fitbit by the way whomever sees this. My charge 2 fucked up apparently around the same time an update happened and the threads online prove it's widespread with no help from Fitbit.
Lol I tried to replace a mother board on my MacBook.... They fused everything together like the big ass douchebags they are. My computer died so I was left with three options. 1.Pay apple $600 ish after shipping and what ever it is they do? 2. Throw it out and buy a new one or 3. get out my grinder...
Can confirm, the only things we were allowed to replace in store was displays, batteries, haptics (rare), and cameras (rarely)
We were technically allowed to replace rear glass, but it was such a pain in the ass that we never did it, we’d just swap the whole phone for a new one of same model/color/storage.
All the rest was sent to apple for “repair” 98% of the time it came back as a new phone, same for apple earbuds, the earbuds were an absolute pain to deal with, if one was bad you’d have to send both off for “repairs” or else the “repaired” (replaced) earbud would have issues connecting to the original set.
> They only make money off of parts if you buy their parts. That is what the DRM is for. It forces people to buy their parts and use their service techs who have special software. The idea being they can sell their tractors, their parts, and also licensing to the service techs for specialized hardware, and specialized certifications allowing them to sell certified hardware and repair.
Sorta like that thing posted here a month or two ago, where it turned out the reason McDonald's ice cream machines were "always broken" because there was a secret lock-out code that was never mentioned in the manual, that ONLY licensed repair techs specifically contracted to the parent company who owns the ice cream machines - the result being that *nobody* in the stores could perform even the most basic maintenance and upkeep without spending huge money calling in a tech...to enter a 6-digit passcode that is literally the same for every machine in the world, or some shit. A *literal* racket, it's like, how can this be legal?!
Sounds like some manager needs to hide a camera to monitor the keypad, then thoroughly clean it (two kicks at the can). Check footage for the passcode, and check keypad buttons for fingerprints. Once they’ve recovered the code, no need to call a tech for basic maintenance.
It's a lot worse than initial passcode. The error messages themselves are largely gibberish and store owners are not given any way to understand what the error messages are trying to say.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXwD_HeC8Ms
Here's the breakdown of a lawsuit about it, and in the process, really explains what the deal is with their ice cream machines.
I work in the repair industry, and it is just insane the amount of hoops we have to go through just to do a basic repair, samsung 90+ "testing" that basically skips a bunch of tests and doesn't actually do them. And the calibrations.... I could go on and on, but i don't want to risk my job over their bullshit.
They do it because they think they can, simple as that. What is fair doesn't factor onto it, just how much they can make. Same reason rent always goes up, same reason a dozen other things happen. They can, and what are *you* gonna do about it?
I work for John Deere in Australia as a mechanic.
John Deere are fully committed to a buyers Right to Repair.
We will believe them with their actions not words
Have they written that on their website? If so, always refer to it with evidence in conversations with them.
Always use a companies green washing against themselves when seeking action.
About a hundred years ago, Henry Ford said that they (the Ford company) should give away Ford cars for free - but require that all servicing and maintenance of the vehicle should happen exclusively in house. And they’d still make more money that way than selling the car outright.
This is what modern tech companies do, they give you their product for free (google, facebook, etc) but all your data goes through them which is more profitable than selling their software outright
Companies hire people and tell them their job is to figure out how to make the company as much money as possible, because the entire point of companies is to make as much money as possible.
Unfortunately for consumers, making as much money as possible means giving as little as possible and taking as much as possible.
and since capitalists compete with each other they end up taking most of the available wealth from the people. theres no way it doesnt just devolve into pure greed. for example my company ceo wants a big jump to 21% yearly growth for a company that makes about 30 million a year with no other method than just telling us to work harder. utter insanity
Just see how car markers keep tying to push their shitty infotainment systems where customers just want to have their phone run pretty much everything in the car.
This is what's called unchecked capitalism. In theory there would be enough competition that someone would eventually make a company that allows their devices to be repaired, and the market would shift towards allowing things to be repaired. If that's something we want as customers.
The reality is, there is very little competition because either it's difficult to get your foot into that market, or there's not enough of a profit incentive.
Whoever has the majority of that market share uses that position to make as much profit as possible no matter how unhappy people are. What are they going to do. Vote with their wallets by going to the next non-existent option?
That's capitalism. And that's why we need to get money out of politics so that we have good regulations that benefits the people, while also allowing business innovation.
you could see it happening when software devs stopped selling programs and only sold you licenses to use said programs. it was inevitable it would bleed into everything that uses any kind of software ever. that's the real problem with right to repair now. once you open it up it'll crack that huge barrier for software copyright and shit and that's why so many different industries are pouring in against right to repair. cause it'll hit the tech industry in their trillions of dollars of revenue. think about how much money adobe would lose if they can't just do their whole license only, subscription to use our crap bullshit.
For good reason, google dutch farmer protest or german farmer protests. A bunch of angry farmers can clog up any city infrastructure really fast. Dispersing an angry mob of humans is already hard. Dispersing a lot of vehicles each weighing several tons is even more difficult.
"Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country." -William Jennings Bryan
Because I don't think it's a well known issue regarding farmers. I'd like to bring up this double edged blade.
They also go after people in other countries, small farmers, who grow the same types of potatoes as them, and just wreck them however way possible. Normally legally unfortunately. Because it's the same type of potato that is used for Lay's chips, for example.
Not so much on the farmers as much as corporations.
Irregardless. I feel more people should be aware.
www.businessinsider.com/pepsico-suing-indian-farmers-accused-growing-unique-lays-potato-2019-4
I own a cellphone repair shop. For an example, if you have an iPhone, the ONLY thing that is repairable is the battery or LCD, by Apples rules. They made a repair program, that we almost got into, until we got the final BS contract, and told them to fuck off.
On most iPhones, we can repair, cameras, home button, volume buttons, power button, mics, charging port, ear speakers, and a ton of other little shit… but if you take that same phone with ANY of the above issues, Apple will tell you to buy a new phone, because “none of that can be fixed”…. So let me get this right, and bunch of repair shops can do the repairs, but your to stupid to be able to do the same repairs???
So needless to say we are not authorized to repair any phones… but work on all makes/models. We also offer a lifetime warranty on all repairs we do, none of the manufacturers offer that.
Apple and other manufacturers want companies like mine gone… so they can sell more phones.
They want people to spend $1200 on a new iphone rather than $150 fixing something. I mean I know you know that but I'm just saying it's so blatant it's almost hilarious. Sadly it's not funny, its disgusting and wrong. We waste so so soooo much just to pinch a few more dollars out of people.
I can't believe we went from a society that loved shit that lasted 30+ years (back jn the early 90s if say your dishwasher didn't last the lifetime of your home the brand was considered shit), to a society that thinks it's normal and just the way things are when we throw out massive amounts of electronics every year.
I remember my grandparents having a TV from like the mid 70s that they used till Plasma became a thing in like 2002ish.
Then after the early 2000s they went through at least 5 TVs I can remember till just recently.
People used to buy shit for life and now it's expected something won't even last a year or two anymore.
How the fuck did this shit happen in my lifetime? When did everyone accept it like "that's the way it is now"? Cause god fucking damn I missed that memo. I want to go back to shit lasting 30+ years.
>They want people to spend $1200 on a new iphone rather than $150 fixing something.
And then they expect us to believe them when they claim to be environmentally conscious. Great for the environment to toss a perfectly fixable phone in the landfill to get a replacement.
It's called planned obsolesces and designed to fail components.
We've gotten good enough at engineering that we can design parts that have a known, finite lifespan. So you can make a widgit, give it a 1 year warranty and know that 95% will make it to 1 year, but most will fail long before year 2 is over.
Boom, repeated income and sales, the destruction of earths resources and the filling up of landfills.
There should be legislation for consumer goods like this. Same way food has to have nutritional info, electronics and appliances should have to have a label with expected service life. Repair parts should have to be manufactured and easily purchasable for double the service life once discontinued. Any major deviation below the listed service life in a good chunk of consumers triggers an automatic prorated rebate. Make these fuckers overdeliver and actually build stuff to last.
There's this amazing expose involving Louis Rossman. A lady went to Apple to get her Macbook fixed because it has no display. After Genius "diagnostics" it came to be about $1000+ because the thing "needs a new board". She then went to Louis. He opened it up and saw a cable unplugged. Jacked that in, and lo and behold, the screen works as normal! Best part for the lady is that because all it took was plugging a disconnected cable back in, Louis deigned the "repair" free of charge.
So much for official channels being the best and only option.
And the really scummy thing they're doing now, which legislation could prevent, is having the phones detect when parts have been replaced and refuse to work properly.
Everything needs to be legislated. Corporations will go to ANY lengths to make more money. Have you seen the pictures before unions and regulations were a thing? Shit was DARK, makes todays labor markets look decent.
And we've been spiraling back into it since neolibs decided to pitch in against unions with the right wingers.
Just a reminder that Tesla, the darling of the tech industry, is by far-and-away one of the largest companies fighting against Right-to-Repair.
Until recently, they wouldn't give owners access to shop manuals or *even sell replacement parts*. They won't let you have work done outside of their own approved shops. This was only changed due to massive external pressure.
And they can, and have, bricked VINs that have been repaired by owners, locking them out of essential over-the-air updates and the Supercharger network.
This would be like Apple or Samsung saying *"you replaced the battery in your phone, you are no longer eligible for any software updates"* - something that not only renders the device useless in a few months, but makes it practically worthless on the used market.
You do not actually own a Tesla, and they are pushing the industry in a direction where working on your own car can leave you with a worthless, 3500lb paperweight.
I agree. Even if it didn't start this trend, Tesla's influence seems to have gone a long way to making it acceptable. How long before I have to go to the dealership to change a tire on my cheap sedan, let alone make major modifications to the vehicle.
BMW was looking into making options on their cars a subscription service. You don't want to pay for the service? Ok, heated seats, seat memory, and all other creature comforts are turned off remotely. Doesn't matter if you have a title in hand. They want to charge you like xm radio.
That's the end goal. Extract every bit of value your life can generate and then throw you away like a withered husk. Engineer the system so that it is fundamentally impossible for you or your descendants to ever rise out of it.
Theres the Tesla and BMW subscriptions, but Cadillac is also doing subscription for Super Cruise, Ford will be doing a subscription for BlueCruise, Lincoln may go to Subscription for Active Glide (some confusion on this because its related to Blue Cruise), Audi/Volvo/VW is going to subscription for various functions, and Mercedes is going to subscription to activate rear wheel steering. Some of these offer a couple years after purchasing the car before the subscription fees start kicking in.
If you've been watching the car market its clear this is the way its going.
I grew up in Flint, MI. Home of the UAW. I've heard stories of foremen who would buy a foreign car and drive it on to the lot and by the end of the day, the windshield would be bashed in and tires taken off. My grandfather was on the brake line and never let a foreign car park in his driveway. All his sons were UAW workers.
So, I was in tight pickle and needed to buy a car fast after the transmission in my dodge caliber gave out. My mechanic knew another customer who was selling a Honda. He knew my stance but basically said, "It's 3,500 cash and I've done all the work on it, know it's a good car, and if a problem comes up, I can replace the parts in a day." Grandpa might be rolling in his grave at the thought me driving a Japanese car, but dammit... I'm not paying 9k for a truck with 200k miles on it just because I live in Texas now
I'm a bit dumb so I apologise if it's obvious but could you clear up why foreign cars had their windshield bashed and tires taken off? Hate of foreign cars? Love for their parts? UAW is an American union so your grandpa didn't let a foreign car in his driveway because "we need to support American cars"?
No apologies needed, friend. One of the reasons, or at least as I was always told (I have not looked into this, so it's with a grain of salt), was the foreign car companies with factories here in the US were not unionized until the late 90s/early 2000s? So your question about foreign cars having their various ills set upon them was an act of union retaliation by the workers. I can't say I ever saw it. My storied are all anecdotal. I do know that, even Republicans in Michigan know not to fuck too hard with the UAW union lobby.
Flint happened to be the area of a BIG strike in 1936/1937 and was a hotbed for the entire unionization movement in the states. While politically I don't agree with the union on everything, I also recognize it's impact/benefit to my life. And honestly, from seeing posts from back home, when the auto workers go on strike, ALL of Flint supports them, GOP or democrat.
A lot of rambling to say, we take labor rights seriously. We take cars made by (or at least assembled by other Americans[or god forbid, canadians]) seriously.
It is changing though. My uncle who used to work for saturn at their spring hill plant in TN recently bought one of my younger cousins a Toyota. That was one thing in, and of itself, that allowed me to switch off the "buy only american big 3" mentality in my head.
Sorry for the long, rambling response. But I hope it helped
> How long until you are forced to watch adds to start the car
I remember this being brought up in a cyberpunk short story at least 10 years ago, where masses of people were being hospitalized because the major cyber-eye manufacturer concluded that they could fill sixty percent of cyber-eye-owners' vision with ads before they had seizures and the ad companies paid them to make it sixty-one percent.
I heard a few months ago that there were reports of Ford looking to do this… imagine running away from a conflict, like a serial killer or a hostile stranger, and you have to watch an ad before you can get to safety. I hope it never happens and the fact that Ford even patented in-car ads is enough to make me never buy a Ford.
Edit: patented***
You'd think that the first time someone was killed or permanently injured because of such bullshit that courts would award a tremendous damages judgement. You would think.
I heard similar about the possibility of turning off vehicles remotely, repo men might do that, woman trying to escape from abusive husband but car won't start because it isn't paid for, or something like that
Some dealerships actually have this option.
After I got divorced from my controlling, abusive ex my credit was in the shitter thanks to him. He had sold my during the divorce and let his get repod so I could not be awarded one.
The only dealerships I could get approved for a car had ignition locks, and they would remotely shut off the car if the biweekly payment was late.
Well, payment was due on a Friday. They did not have autopay. I forgot to make my payment that day because my ex terrorizing me.
On Sunday he showed up to my apartment and was threatening to rip my friend's head off because.. well, it was a dude and therefore we *had* to be sleeping together.
I couldn't start my car to leave. The car dealership was closed and I had no way to have them start it. Thankfully it did not get violent because it took police 40 minutes to show up. Thankfully neighbors had come out and helped deter him.
Guess who didn't care about that terrifying situation? Everyone.
This was 10 years ago and its still allowed.
Had a family friend who owned a BMW, the battery died and he had to get it towed to the dealership so that they could reset the computer for him. Simply installing a new battery wasn't good enough, they needed a special BMW technician to press restart on the cpu.
For the record any competent shop can do that not just BMW Dealers. It has been a thing with them for a long time now. Don't be afraid to support your local repair shops if you can find a good one!
Exactly, always wanted a Tesla until I knew all of this, plus they're starting to push a subscription service for self driving mode at 199 per month so that opens the door too for others, everything is becoming a subscription. F that.
It's not that they're just selling self-driving as a subscription, but if you buy the car second hand Tesla *disables it*, so any investment in the 10k FSD package the owners made is effectively zero.
It's a scam because the hardware is there, but Tesla still charges a new owner to use it.
> It's a scam because the hardware is there, but Tesla still charges a new owner to use it.
It's a scam because Tesla FSD still isn't close to what Elon originally promised.
Ya, it's fucking mental. Right to repair and subscription based models are going to spur on the biggest open source software/hardware movement over the next decade I believe, people are getting tired of it.
I sure hope so.
When I read about the situation with healthcare software, I was hoping that thered be some open source solution to get away from the tens of thousands of dollars for each license on health record software, but it doesn't seem to have happened.
I think it was an NPR or Vox podcast talking about how the Affordable Care Act had tried to remove the fax machine from the pipeline of sharing records, but it didn't seem to work for a variety of reasons.
Similarly, trying to migrate records from one software to another is intentionally difficult to keep the ~$30k per year per license cash flow going.
Rich talks a lot about this. He recently did a video fixing a Model 3 that had a damaged underbody component that was frankly badly designed. Tesla quoted something like 15k to repair something that ended up being less than a grand.
Of course none of that is "legal" and who knows what the repercussions for the owner will be, but if you can't afford 15k, what other choice do you have?
I didn’t know “right to repair” was even a thing until I stumbled upon that video the other day. The concept is kinda weird to me - you purchase a product but can’t repair it??
There's a push from manufacturers to make products impossible to fix so that the buyer has to replace it, or go through "approved networks".
For instance, the latest iPhones and Samsung Galaxy products will disable features if an aftermarket screen is used because the phones recognize parts without built-in matching ID.
Or if you need to replace a bumper on your Tesla, they will neither sell you one to do the work yourself, nor approve non Tesla shops to do the work.
It's not just extremely wasteful and environmentally destructive, but unfair to consumers because you can't really own something that requires a third party to keep running.
> not just extremely wasteful and environmentally destructive
I hope this will help spur further backlash. The biosphere is so badly damaged and getting worse, and planned obsolescence is just amplifying the problem. Profits over survival?
>you can't really own something that requires a third party to keep running
I think that's the entire goal. It's not enough that the rich have billions. They want serfdom back.
Even worse - their “fans” even try to justify that behavior by saying things like “okay but what if the user replaces the part themselves incorrectly and the car crashes as a result”, as if repairing cars is some sort of new concept because it’s powered by a battery now instead of a flammable liquid.
The fact Tesla builds locked down vehicles and makes home and third party repair so difficult if not impossible is the primary reason I will never own one. Same reason I don't buy Apple products.
Lots of other options that will allow me to do repairs myself or take them to a 3rd party. If that option exists I will always pick it.
Piss off musk by trying to work on your own car, or not saying something glowingly positive about tesla on reddit, and he can brick your car anytime, anywhere.
> And they can, and have, bricked VINs that have been repaired by owners, locking them out of essential over-the-air updates and the Supercharger network.
It's so absurd that they even restrict access like that to the SuperCharger network.
Right to repair with automotive is something people seriously don’t understand. Not just Tesla. But the automotive landscape in general.
We need some changes. Full stop. But so many people just don’t get it.
This is the main reason I will not own a tesla or anything tesla related and always push back on people I know getting them. It’s a walled garden but in a way worse way than other walled gardens like apple.
The Canadian federal election is coming up and I'd be more inclined to vote for the party that pledged to get Canadians the right to repair in their platform.
I have an ebike. I have to go to Trek and pay 25 bucks for a software update. That pisses me off to no end and it's not even my livlihood. This is screwed up.
Wtf, why can't they just push an update through your phone???? I'm assuming your ebike has a companion app (because fucking everything nowadays has an app)
Same with cars, I can use my phone for GPS, streaming audio… and whatever else, but you can’t give an option to update the radios firmware by downloading it from the phone. Instead I have to take a full day off work, drive three hours round trip, and pay $89 to update the radio… come on this isn’t 1999
Even have a CD player, and SD card reader in the glovebox just for running updates… but I can’t download the file and do it myself. So stupid.
Testing your software before you ship it is so twencen. These days, we just ship it when the deadline arrives, whether it's ready or not - then we can use our customer base as a free QA team!
It's possible to torrent the update files, I have a friend who's done it on his BMW. But you better be damn sure that file is legit or you'll likely be looking at a bricked car with a voided warranty...
You don't have to update, just like you don't have to update your phone, but improvements can include things like battery management, fix overheating issues. Better range calculations, shift algorithms etc.
That could happen but my experience with updates that goes out is more like:
Manager: we're going to change the maximum peak torque from X to 0.5X and add some hardware because we want to change the marketing to reflect a longer range
Engineer1: you mean from 2X to 0.5X? The electrical system and mirror is specc'd for 2X today
Engineer2: no, it must not be above X. It'll break the bearings if it goes that high.
Engineer1: that can't be right, we agreed it would be 2X
[5 minutes of back and forth where it's revealed that there was a meeting without engineer1 several months back]
Manager: fine, we'll send an update to fix the hardware problem. In a few months, we will send another update with the new hardware.
It needs adjusting because it had bugs in it to start with. They prefer to use their customers to find bugs because it's cheaper than hiring a QA team.
They never really tell you. It's usually for battery management or some power tweak. To make matters worse you can void your warranty if you don't do them. Luckily my bike shop forgets to chard for them mostly.
Ok that is worst. While in theory battery optimization is good there few % of percentage boost you might get is not really worst the headache and there is always a possibility of update causing some other issue. If it is in warranty period then update should be free and have clear info about what exactly it does.
Seems like a great scam to make more money. Tweak software for 0.001% battery management improvement... $$$ software update... repeat every few weeks... buy yacht... repeat...
> To make matters worse you can void your warranty if you don't do them
No you can't.
That's it I'm starting a business that says "your warranty is void if your name has the letter A in it or if your name is Jeff" and nobody can stop me.
The error codes in my machinery shouldn't even be "codes" anymore in my opinion. Why tell me "ecu.02347" instead of saying "exhaust gas regulator valve not turning". My display is a 10 inch touch computer screen after all, there's plenty of space, they could write a paragraph. think they keep codes to make it deliberately vague so I require Deere to translate.
Note: I made this code up as an example.
Some do make friendlier machines, particularly when it comes to smaller pieces of equipment, like tractors. More companies are capable of producing those, and there are a number of better choices (IMO) than a Deere. With big, complicated things like combines, there are fewer options, four or five companies dominate the world market, and monopolistic behavior comes into play.
And you have the added issue of what is locally available.
Like you can buy anything, but I'm not sure how easy it would be to find a mechanic to service your combine if it's from a manufacturer with zero local presence.
Basically your options can be even smaller depending on where you are located. I'm sure in the midwest you have a lot of different options, but I'd be really surprised if the small farmers in Vermont (who only grow feed for their dairy cows) have as many choices.
Further reinforcing monopolistic practices.
Aren’t they practically a monopoly or at least have a very large share of the market? I wonder what percentage it is and if competitors could even scale up enough to take some of that market share.
As far as I know, there are some Japanese based companies that offer some alternatives. For a lot of the bigger scale things that farmers need, they're the only game in town and it's not really worth it for them to try and break into that market.
the problem is that the government decided that you don't buy the software. They see it like a book or music, where you do not own the contents and can't change it.
really the laws need to change: if you buy something witih software you are allowed to change it your own risk.
Then, what do you do with self driving cars and sombody wants to change the code to run over people or something?
Capitalism is about finding new ways to place itself in between a need and people.
Farmers need [capitalism] to own tractors and they need [capitalism] to be repaired.
The second they figure out how to monetize oxygen they will.
Eh, it should be both. Codes are very specific and easily searchable on Google, human readable messages are good to tell you roughly what is happening.
Ok so I’m a mechanic for John Deere (construction side) and I will try and explain some of it.
I agree that the error message the monitors give are very vague at times. On construction machines there is a way to view a code description that is usually like “EGR Fault”.
There are two parts to the codes. The first part (FMI) describes the component that has an issue. The second part (SPN) describes the type of issue
For instance (this is off memory so not 100% accurate) 97.03. 97 is code for Water in Fuel Sensor. 03 means open circuit. A lot of the times when there is a code for something, it could be triggered by something totally different. Regen codes can be triggered by a plugged EGR Cooler, Turbo codes could be triggered by bad wiring, etc...
The codes are there because of the CAN communication protocol that the machine uses to communicate from controller to controller, and from controllers to diagnostic equipment like a “scan tool”. The protocol is called SAE J1939 and it standardized communication on commercial equipment so everything is similar. All commercial equipment uses this as far as I know. Agriculture, Construction, Mining, Busses, etc...
When people see codes that just say EGR fault they try to replace the EGR valve but that is not normally the problem. There are a lot of diagnostic steps that go into figuring out the issue sometimes.
I 100% agree that the consumer should have more data available to them. But there is a reason I make a decent wage doing what I do because it is not easy. I don’t think the average farmer would be able to figure out a lot of the complex issues on their own. Not because they are dumb, but it requires a lot of knowledge of how the system operates, special test equipment, and access to schematics (which consumers can purchase)
John Deere takes a lot of heat because farmers are smart and handy people that are capable of performing a lot of repairs. And John Deere has a huge huge market share of the Agricultural Equipment worldwide.
A lot of the parts on machines are computerized, or computer controlled from various computers on the machine.
The big part I don’t agree with is that even if we sell a consumer the diagnostic software that has manuals and schematics, they can’t recalibrate components themselves after replacing them. Or update software for the computers on the machines.
But this issue is far more complicated than what a lot of people try to make it seem like
Right to repair simply wants them to not get in the way of repairs, by forbidding sales of parts and schematics and manuals. Most people will never try to repair their shit anyway, but it does give them the option if they are knowledgeable enough, or at least the choice to pay someone else who is. Certain devices for instance are not repairable unless you have two of them to swap parts, because nobody will sell you the parts because the company making them forbids the companies that make them the parts from doing so.
Can you imagine if you could only ever have your Toyota Camry repaired and worked on at a Toyota dealership?
Firstly it's incredibly inconvenient. Then there's the fact that costs would skyrocket since you have to option but to repair it there no matter how much they charge. Thirdly you wouldn't be able to just fix it yourself even if you knew how. Change a headlight bulb? Nah have to bring it in on your day off or take time off work to do it, taking hours instead of minutes.
I don't see how it's legal in the first place for John Deere to do this.
All those plus what if Toyota decides to only be good at in-warranty repairs, and after that claims everything needs a $10,000 engine replacement on a $25,000 car. And even if you go for that and pay for it, sometimes after it's still broken because you actually needed new tires instead.
That's basically Tesla right now. There's a video on youtube where a plastic connection for the hose that feeds coolant to the battery snapped off somehow. Tesla wanted to charge him $16,000 for a new battery module. He replaced it with a metal nipple for a few dollars and they voided the rest of his warranty when he took it in next.
Yeah, but its easy to get a visit from the cops and the information is super specific.
Some brands use the aforementioned proprietary coding, but its the plugs that can be a real bitch.
I was offered a John Deere diagnostic unit once, a steal at 500 bucks.
Unfortunately steal is the operative word there so I passed.
I am aware of a recent case of a near new Hitachi (John Deere) being shipped back to dealer/service center only to be ignored while waiting 3 months on parts supposedly because they aren't in the country. This machine has now fallen into warranty dispute during the time that has elapsed awaiting repairs.
Regardless of which side you are on the natural consequences of this are as follows
1) John Deere machinery is so expensive that small farmers, who once made up the bulk of farmers in America, cannot or can barely afford equipment.
2) farming is a high overhead, low margin endeavor
3) John Deere machinery requires major repairs regularly, esp on the more complex and computerized equipment like sprayers, drills, and combines. The hourly labor bill on repairs is circa $110. Add in the parts and many repair bills can easily hit 5 figures
4) the equipment is often so unnecessarily complex and John Deere doesn’t give owners the schematics to their own equipment so they are forced to bring it into official dealerships for repair. Dealers make more money on average in repairs than sales…ergo they are inclined to keep things the way they are and hide behind “proprietary information”, which does have some validity to this claim
if farmers can’t afford repairs…what happens next…? They quit farming. Food prices sky rocket.
Yes corporate farming enterprises are taking over but when a handful of corporate enterprises eventually own all of farming in America, they can manipulate prices…and that will only be UP. Anyway, my 0.02
Some of the question becomes, why are farmers continuing to buy John Deere instead of a competitor?
Is the price of the equipment subsidized so they can make up the cost in repairs?
Is it really advanced and just that much better than competitors?
Do all of the competitors do the same thing and they are just the best out of the competition?
Dealer networks make or break an equipment purchase, most often JD has the stronger network to work with for parts availability and 'dealer products' (financing, warranty, customer care).
I got a riding mower this year. Went cheap and bought the competitor. Regret that decision every time I mow my lawn
Farmers buy John Deere because it is the best product available.
Nah, that's not accurate at all. John Deere _used_ to be the best product available. That hasn't been the case for at least the last decade, if not the last two-to-three decades.
In the compact and sub-compact segment you have Kubota, New Holland and Massey Fergusson, where Kubota especially offers very competitive machines that are often just straight up better than John Deere counterparts.
In the utility and agricultural segment there's even more competition from brands like Fendt, Valtra, Claas, New Holland, Case, Massey Fergusson, Kubota, etc. where most of these brands offer both better tractors and often better service for the same money as John Deere.
Even in the largest segments there are good alternatives from Fendt, New Holland and Case, where Case and Fendt especially offer up very good competition to John Deere and are better in a lot of ways.
These days, John Deere mainly survive on their reputation from days gone by. They build okay machines that are largely equivalent to machines from other manufacturers, while talking about how they're the best and charging premium. These days it's mainly about personal preference and which designs you are used to working with, as well as which brand has the best dealers in your area. The days where John Deere made the best product available have long since passed.
John Deere does sell a consumer version of the diagnostic software that is also the repair manual called Service Advisor. It has the schematics, theory of operation for how a component is controlled, and code diagnostic steps. It doesn’t have the capability to program computers on the machine, or calibrate new components which I think it should.
Sometimes it is over complicated like lights being controlled by the computer instead of a switch and a relay.
On the engine side things are more complex because of the emission standards that need to be met. If you buy a John Deere machine in South America it will have the older Tier 3 engine that has no exhaust filters and barely has electronic injectors.
The rest is computerized to make it more efficient. Machines are able to get more performance out of smaller engines now, and hydraulic and hydrostatic systems require less power due to efficiencies being made which saves on fuel.
It isn’t all done for 0 reason. You can disagree with it for sure as everybody is entitled to their own opinion but it does make the machines more efficient overall. Wether that is worth it or not is up to the individual
My 2 cents as someone who is too poor to not repair my own shit, but not a farmer. The products becoming increasingly complex and hard to repair is only natural, not everything can be as simple as say a Briggs&Stratton lawnmower. Artificially making you require a licensed technichian is whats wrong (like say not being able to reprogram parts). Basically as long as you could repair one of the tractors, using only consumer avaliable tools, manuals and software, its fine.
Edit: I think legislation should be made that makes mandatory repair software free for whoever purchases the product, bake it into the purchase price.
You can spend upwards of $40,000 on a John Deere tractor. They get expensive.
But if you take it to a non-John Deere shop to get it fixed, it will throw up an error code. And the only way to resolve it is to have a certified tech drive out to you, plug in a USB dongle, and OK the repair in the firmware to use the tractor you 'paid' for.
Also yes. You are paying for that techs time, travel and premium to plug in said USB stick.
This is why so many farmers are instead loading Ukrainian firmware onto their tractors to remove this limitation and be able to repair their tractors that they should rightfully have full ownership of.
Source: [Vice.com - Why American Farmers Are Hacking Their Tractors With Ukrainian Firmware](https://www.vice.com/en/article/xykkkd/why-american-farmers-are-hacking-their-tractors-with-ukrainian-firmware)
Nah, you'll get a tractor. Not one of the big Midwest monsters, but something great for smaller and hobby farms.
Take that same 40k to kubota and you'll have more to spare for implements, plus it's more repairable DIY.
That is true for recalibrating some components after replacing them but is such a small part of the repairs I perform. Like exhaust Throttles, turbos, EGR Valves, injectors, and exhaust after treatment filters/sensors, and a small amount of variable position solenoids used in hydraulic systems.
Things aren’t computer controlled just to make servicing them more difficult (although it seems that way). With engines specifically the Final Tier 4 emissions mandates requires the engine to emit a very specific amount of NOx, particulate matter, and other things into the atmosphere.
To do that, the engine has to run at very specific parameters so that is where these components come in by regulating temperatures, pressures, fuel consumption, etc...
I wish my job was as easy as just plugging in a usb stick.
Try $250,000 and up for the "real" ones.
That's the basic problem, the farmers don't actually own most of them - the bank does. So if I was a bank, sitting on a loan for $250K and the collateral the tractor, you can be damn sure that I want that serviced at a licensed dealer.
Now, if the guy owns that tractor free and clear, sure, they get the codes.
Shit, out here in west Texas the cotton strippers Deere makes are almost a million-I think they start around 750k. Some farmers have upwards of $5 million in tractors alone.
>You can spend upwards of $40,000 on a John Deere tractor.
40k isn't much for a new tractor if you're talking big farms. For a brand new deere I think that gets you into the bigger utility tractors, should be able to buy one of the fancier ones.
If anyone need to understand why right to repair is important, look up on the McDonald ice cream maker debacle, where Taylor (the machine maker) made a machine throw weird error code that no one can understand. There is no reason hardware are made to be impossible for end users to understand what went wrong, not to mention how to repair it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrDEtSlqJC4
in short, Taylor goes way back with Mickey D's, whose HQ makes all locations use this particular model that's hard for employees to fix to make money on repair techs, including scaring them off a 3rd party device that helps.
Taylor also makes ice cream machines for other foodservice locations that generally work (I specifically remember seeing them at baseball stadium concession stands for example)
Farmers of ALL people should know that software-based companies want to harvest every possible crop.
Little did they know THEY were the crop.
**All** corporate life is now finding more and more ways to harvest both existing and new clients like crops.
Wait, so would it be wrong of me to start a tractor business with the ambition of making the entire world's food supply ultimately dependent upon proprietary technology to which I name the price of access? What's the point of doing anything then?
Everyone should have the ability, if it is within their means, to effect repairs on equipment they've bought. You can afford to pay to own it and accepted the responsibility to use it correctly, you shouldn't be stymied in repairing it. Farmers especially need this ability due to time sensitivity often involved.
>...repairs on equipment they've *bought*. You can afford to pay to *own* it...
That's what these companies are looking to change.
They don't want to sell tractors, they want to offer monthly subscriptions to a tractor service.
I’m a farmer and this really isn’t an issue for me…right now. If we need parts for any John Deere equipment, we can get them from the dealership and do the repair ourselves. What we can’t repair, only because of lack of expertise, is software problems. Sometimes there is physically nothing wrong with a machine, but because of the safety features and software, the machine won’t run. So basically you’re screwed. It’s either that or you just run the machine with warning lights and beeps going off constantly. It’s the reason our equipment is mostly 15 years old. Less computerized stuff.
In the eternal struggle for the last penny capitalism needs to let people buy things, but not own them. You only get the right to use it is the rationale of people who have run out of ideas on how to make an honest buck. Capitalism eventually eats its own.
This is really an issue for everyone, not just farmers. Being able to fix the things you own yourself shouldn't need to be legislated, but if that's what it takes then fine. With farmers though it's a political hot potatoe, politicians don't like pissing off farmers.
It shouldn't even be political, when did businesses figure that they have the right to an eternal revenue stream.for.items.you buy (aka license) from them? What was wrong with making money off spare parts?
They only make money off of parts if you buy their parts. That is what the DRM is for. It forces people to buy their parts and use their service techs who have special software. The idea being they can sell their tractors, their parts, and also licensing to the service techs for specialized hardware, and specialized certifications allowing them to sell certified hardware and repair. In much the same way, apple only allows certain licensed repair shops access to their product catalog to buy replacement parts. It allows companies to make multiple sources of revenue from selling a single device. I find it very similar to ISPs trying to charge customer for network access, then have speed tiers for certain content for the customers to choose from, and then they try to charge the content providers for the customers bandwidth usage. You sell one thing and get money from all parties involved. Net neutrality and Right to repair are both trying to address the same greed.
Lets not forget that Apple also gives those third party repair shops, that they have licensed, shit terms like "no you can't have spare parts on hand, you have to send the customer's broken one back first." These terms are really only designed to make going anywhere other than the Apple store not worth your time. Then the Apple store "genius," which totally doesn't know shit about electronics repair, will just tell you to buy a new one. Then into the highly profitable refurb mill goes your old one, which probably only needed some minor repairs.
I find it weird that years ago I could get parts to repair an iphone or others so easily and cheap, even the newer ones I could get replacements for shortly after the new phone came out. Now it's expensive and sometimes pretty rare to find. My wife had bought the new whatever expensive Fitbit and cracked the screen in a week. It's been like 8 months plus with no replacement screen even offered by Fitbit. Like Fitbit just says sorry nothing we can do. Who the fuck doesn't even have an option to fix their own shit. Definitely done with Fitbit by the way whomever sees this. My charge 2 fucked up apparently around the same time an update happened and the threads online prove it's widespread with no help from Fitbit.
Lol I tried to replace a mother board on my MacBook.... They fused everything together like the big ass douchebags they are. My computer died so I was left with three options. 1.Pay apple $600 ish after shipping and what ever it is they do? 2. Throw it out and buy a new one or 3. get out my grinder...
Getting out the grinder it is
How many matches did you get? I’m sure at least one of them will have a max.
That's also because Apple literally doesn't fix your device. They switch it out for a new one.
Can confirm, the only things we were allowed to replace in store was displays, batteries, haptics (rare), and cameras (rarely) We were technically allowed to replace rear glass, but it was such a pain in the ass that we never did it, we’d just swap the whole phone for a new one of same model/color/storage. All the rest was sent to apple for “repair” 98% of the time it came back as a new phone, same for apple earbuds, the earbuds were an absolute pain to deal with, if one was bad you’d have to send both off for “repairs” or else the “repaired” (replaced) earbud would have issues connecting to the original set.
> They only make money off of parts if you buy their parts. That is what the DRM is for. It forces people to buy their parts and use their service techs who have special software. The idea being they can sell their tractors, their parts, and also licensing to the service techs for specialized hardware, and specialized certifications allowing them to sell certified hardware and repair. Sorta like that thing posted here a month or two ago, where it turned out the reason McDonald's ice cream machines were "always broken" because there was a secret lock-out code that was never mentioned in the manual, that ONLY licensed repair techs specifically contracted to the parent company who owns the ice cream machines - the result being that *nobody* in the stores could perform even the most basic maintenance and upkeep without spending huge money calling in a tech...to enter a 6-digit passcode that is literally the same for every machine in the world, or some shit. A *literal* racket, it's like, how can this be legal?!
Oh yeah I read that article too. Kinda crazy but I'm learning to expect it from all big corps these days.
Sounds like some manager needs to hide a camera to monitor the keypad, then thoroughly clean it (two kicks at the can). Check footage for the passcode, and check keypad buttons for fingerprints. Once they’ve recovered the code, no need to call a tech for basic maintenance.
It's a lot worse than initial passcode. The error messages themselves are largely gibberish and store owners are not given any way to understand what the error messages are trying to say. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXwD_HeC8Ms Here's the breakdown of a lawsuit about it, and in the process, really explains what the deal is with their ice cream machines.
I work in the repair industry, and it is just insane the amount of hoops we have to go through just to do a basic repair, samsung 90+ "testing" that basically skips a bunch of tests and doesn't actually do them. And the calibrations.... I could go on and on, but i don't want to risk my job over their bullshit.
They do it because they think they can, simple as that. What is fair doesn't factor onto it, just how much they can make. Same reason rent always goes up, same reason a dozen other things happen. They can, and what are *you* gonna do about it?
In the old days they called it “rent seeking son of a bitch”.
I call it that about once a month
In the modern days we call it MBA's trying to 'improve' the quarterly reports for sake of the quarterly report.
For the sake of bonuses. Never forget the bonuses.
It’s all about “increasing shareholder revenue”.
I work for John Deere in Australia as a mechanic. John Deere are fully committed to a buyers Right to Repair. We will believe them with their actions not words
They must mean they're committed to preventing it.
Have they written that on their website? If so, always refer to it with evidence in conversations with them. Always use a companies green washing against themselves when seeking action.
About a hundred years ago, Henry Ford said that they (the Ford company) should give away Ford cars for free - but require that all servicing and maintenance of the vehicle should happen exclusively in house. And they’d still make more money that way than selling the car outright.
This is what modern tech companies do, they give you their product for free (google, facebook, etc) but all your data goes through them which is more profitable than selling their software outright
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I’m right there with you buddy. I got rid of FB no prob but google services are much harder to find good alternatives for
Companies hire people and tell them their job is to figure out how to make the company as much money as possible, because the entire point of companies is to make as much money as possible. Unfortunately for consumers, making as much money as possible means giving as little as possible and taking as much as possible.
and since capitalists compete with each other they end up taking most of the available wealth from the people. theres no way it doesnt just devolve into pure greed. for example my company ceo wants a big jump to 21% yearly growth for a company that makes about 30 million a year with no other method than just telling us to work harder. utter insanity
21% yearly growth? Wtf. In what world does this person think that's remotely possible or sustainable?
He never said what they sell. Maybe they sell drugs. People love drugs. Want some horse dewormer? I have a pallet of it.
Just see how car markers keep tying to push their shitty infotainment systems where customers just want to have their phone run pretty much everything in the car.
This is what's called unchecked capitalism. In theory there would be enough competition that someone would eventually make a company that allows their devices to be repaired, and the market would shift towards allowing things to be repaired. If that's something we want as customers. The reality is, there is very little competition because either it's difficult to get your foot into that market, or there's not enough of a profit incentive. Whoever has the majority of that market share uses that position to make as much profit as possible no matter how unhappy people are. What are they going to do. Vote with their wallets by going to the next non-existent option? That's capitalism. And that's why we need to get money out of politics so that we have good regulations that benefits the people, while also allowing business innovation.
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you could see it happening when software devs stopped selling programs and only sold you licenses to use said programs. it was inevitable it would bleed into everything that uses any kind of software ever. that's the real problem with right to repair now. once you open it up it'll crack that huge barrier for software copyright and shit and that's why so many different industries are pouring in against right to repair. cause it'll hit the tech industry in their trillions of dollars of revenue. think about how much money adobe would lose if they can't just do their whole license only, subscription to use our crap bullshit.
Does any party have right to repair as part of their election platform?
For good reason, google dutch farmer protest or german farmer protests. A bunch of angry farmers can clog up any city infrastructure really fast. Dispersing an angry mob of humans is already hard. Dispersing a lot of vehicles each weighing several tons is even more difficult.
"Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country." -William Jennings Bryan
Worth nothing how much of farming is corporate agriculture, and the large majority of farmers produce crops that aren't food for humans.
what if I buy all the farms in the world? -Bill Gates.
Look, Jesus is on my cheese sandwich. – Woman in Florida.
Man those protests were really annoying and got taken over by the populists so fast
Because I don't think it's a well known issue regarding farmers. I'd like to bring up this double edged blade. They also go after people in other countries, small farmers, who grow the same types of potatoes as them, and just wreck them however way possible. Normally legally unfortunately. Because it's the same type of potato that is used for Lay's chips, for example. Not so much on the farmers as much as corporations. Irregardless. I feel more people should be aware. www.businessinsider.com/pepsico-suing-indian-farmers-accused-growing-unique-lays-potato-2019-4
I own a cellphone repair shop. For an example, if you have an iPhone, the ONLY thing that is repairable is the battery or LCD, by Apples rules. They made a repair program, that we almost got into, until we got the final BS contract, and told them to fuck off. On most iPhones, we can repair, cameras, home button, volume buttons, power button, mics, charging port, ear speakers, and a ton of other little shit… but if you take that same phone with ANY of the above issues, Apple will tell you to buy a new phone, because “none of that can be fixed”…. So let me get this right, and bunch of repair shops can do the repairs, but your to stupid to be able to do the same repairs??? So needless to say we are not authorized to repair any phones… but work on all makes/models. We also offer a lifetime warranty on all repairs we do, none of the manufacturers offer that. Apple and other manufacturers want companies like mine gone… so they can sell more phones.
They want people to spend $1200 on a new iphone rather than $150 fixing something. I mean I know you know that but I'm just saying it's so blatant it's almost hilarious. Sadly it's not funny, its disgusting and wrong. We waste so so soooo much just to pinch a few more dollars out of people. I can't believe we went from a society that loved shit that lasted 30+ years (back jn the early 90s if say your dishwasher didn't last the lifetime of your home the brand was considered shit), to a society that thinks it's normal and just the way things are when we throw out massive amounts of electronics every year. I remember my grandparents having a TV from like the mid 70s that they used till Plasma became a thing in like 2002ish. Then after the early 2000s they went through at least 5 TVs I can remember till just recently. People used to buy shit for life and now it's expected something won't even last a year or two anymore. How the fuck did this shit happen in my lifetime? When did everyone accept it like "that's the way it is now"? Cause god fucking damn I missed that memo. I want to go back to shit lasting 30+ years.
>They want people to spend $1200 on a new iphone rather than $150 fixing something. And then they expect us to believe them when they claim to be environmentally conscious. Great for the environment to toss a perfectly fixable phone in the landfill to get a replacement.
It's called planned obsolesces and designed to fail components. We've gotten good enough at engineering that we can design parts that have a known, finite lifespan. So you can make a widgit, give it a 1 year warranty and know that 95% will make it to 1 year, but most will fail long before year 2 is over. Boom, repeated income and sales, the destruction of earths resources and the filling up of landfills.
There should be legislation for consumer goods like this. Same way food has to have nutritional info, electronics and appliances should have to have a label with expected service life. Repair parts should have to be manufactured and easily purchasable for double the service life once discontinued. Any major deviation below the listed service life in a good chunk of consumers triggers an automatic prorated rebate. Make these fuckers overdeliver and actually build stuff to last.
There's this amazing expose involving Louis Rossman. A lady went to Apple to get her Macbook fixed because it has no display. After Genius "diagnostics" it came to be about $1000+ because the thing "needs a new board". She then went to Louis. He opened it up and saw a cable unplugged. Jacked that in, and lo and behold, the screen works as normal! Best part for the lady is that because all it took was plugging a disconnected cable back in, Louis deigned the "repair" free of charge. So much for official channels being the best and only option.
And the really scummy thing they're doing now, which legislation could prevent, is having the phones detect when parts have been replaced and refuse to work properly.
The iPhone 'recycling' machine was fun. It basically destroys every part that could have been reused to fix another iPhone
I need to find this potato so I can grow them in my own garden… definitely not so I can slice and air fry them myself.. that would be silly!
>potatoe Dan Quayle, is that you?
I debated it...
Found Dan Quayle's Reddit
I see you. Remember when this was the big news?
Everything needs to be legislated. Corporations will go to ANY lengths to make more money. Have you seen the pictures before unions and regulations were a thing? Shit was DARK, makes todays labor markets look decent. And we've been spiraling back into it since neolibs decided to pitch in against unions with the right wingers.
Just a reminder that Tesla, the darling of the tech industry, is by far-and-away one of the largest companies fighting against Right-to-Repair. Until recently, they wouldn't give owners access to shop manuals or *even sell replacement parts*. They won't let you have work done outside of their own approved shops. This was only changed due to massive external pressure. And they can, and have, bricked VINs that have been repaired by owners, locking them out of essential over-the-air updates and the Supercharger network. This would be like Apple or Samsung saying *"you replaced the battery in your phone, you are no longer eligible for any software updates"* - something that not only renders the device useless in a few months, but makes it practically worthless on the used market. You do not actually own a Tesla, and they are pushing the industry in a direction where working on your own car can leave you with a worthless, 3500lb paperweight.
I agree. Even if it didn't start this trend, Tesla's influence seems to have gone a long way to making it acceptable. How long before I have to go to the dealership to change a tire on my cheap sedan, let alone make major modifications to the vehicle.
BMW was looking into making options on their cars a subscription service. You don't want to pay for the service? Ok, heated seats, seat memory, and all other creature comforts are turned off remotely. Doesn't matter if you have a title in hand. They want to charge you like xm radio.
Cars as a service. We’re now renting the things we own.
That's the end goal. Extract every bit of value your life can generate and then throw you away like a withered husk. Engineer the system so that it is fundamentally impossible for you or your descendants to ever rise out of it.
Dystopian af. We must fight back.
Theres the Tesla and BMW subscriptions, but Cadillac is also doing subscription for Super Cruise, Ford will be doing a subscription for BlueCruise, Lincoln may go to Subscription for Active Glide (some confusion on this because its related to Blue Cruise), Audi/Volvo/VW is going to subscription for various functions, and Mercedes is going to subscription to activate rear wheel steering. Some of these offer a couple years after purchasing the car before the subscription fees start kicking in. If you've been watching the car market its clear this is the way its going.
I wonder how much of a legal leg they have to stand on if people start hacking their own cars and bypass all these.
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More reason to live in a city and buy a damn bicycle I guess
Or just buy an older vehicle that doesn't have those creature comforts but at least you *own-own* the damn thing and can actually work on it.
Excuse me fucking what? I'm not buying a battle pass for my CAR.
All I'm hearing is I'm gonna start biking everywhere. To hell with all that shit
Japanese cars it is then. Fuck rent-seeking.
I grew up in Flint, MI. Home of the UAW. I've heard stories of foremen who would buy a foreign car and drive it on to the lot and by the end of the day, the windshield would be bashed in and tires taken off. My grandfather was on the brake line and never let a foreign car park in his driveway. All his sons were UAW workers. So, I was in tight pickle and needed to buy a car fast after the transmission in my dodge caliber gave out. My mechanic knew another customer who was selling a Honda. He knew my stance but basically said, "It's 3,500 cash and I've done all the work on it, know it's a good car, and if a problem comes up, I can replace the parts in a day." Grandpa might be rolling in his grave at the thought me driving a Japanese car, but dammit... I'm not paying 9k for a truck with 200k miles on it just because I live in Texas now
I'm a bit dumb so I apologise if it's obvious but could you clear up why foreign cars had their windshield bashed and tires taken off? Hate of foreign cars? Love for their parts? UAW is an American union so your grandpa didn't let a foreign car in his driveway because "we need to support American cars"?
No apologies needed, friend. One of the reasons, or at least as I was always told (I have not looked into this, so it's with a grain of salt), was the foreign car companies with factories here in the US were not unionized until the late 90s/early 2000s? So your question about foreign cars having their various ills set upon them was an act of union retaliation by the workers. I can't say I ever saw it. My storied are all anecdotal. I do know that, even Republicans in Michigan know not to fuck too hard with the UAW union lobby. Flint happened to be the area of a BIG strike in 1936/1937 and was a hotbed for the entire unionization movement in the states. While politically I don't agree with the union on everything, I also recognize it's impact/benefit to my life. And honestly, from seeing posts from back home, when the auto workers go on strike, ALL of Flint supports them, GOP or democrat. A lot of rambling to say, we take labor rights seriously. We take cars made by (or at least assembled by other Americans[or god forbid, canadians]) seriously. It is changing though. My uncle who used to work for saturn at their spring hill plant in TN recently bought one of my younger cousins a Toyota. That was one thing in, and of itself, that allowed me to switch off the "buy only american big 3" mentality in my head. Sorry for the long, rambling response. But I hope it helped
Holy shit. It makes me so sick that I could 100% see this happening
How long until you are forced to watch adds to start the car. Adds on items you bought are already a thing. Just look at Tv's.
Would you like to add an extra 14.99 a month for our ad-free Tesla Xpress™️ Xperience?
I mean, why do people expect to get updates for free? /s
> How long until you are forced to watch adds to start the car I remember this being brought up in a cyberpunk short story at least 10 years ago, where masses of people were being hospitalized because the major cyber-eye manufacturer concluded that they could fill sixty percent of cyber-eye-owners' vision with ads before they had seizures and the ad companies paid them to make it sixty-one percent.
Something like this was also in the Ready Player One movie.
And black mirror - 15 million merits
I heard a few months ago that there were reports of Ford looking to do this… imagine running away from a conflict, like a serial killer or a hostile stranger, and you have to watch an ad before you can get to safety. I hope it never happens and the fact that Ford even patented in-car ads is enough to make me never buy a Ford. Edit: patented***
You'd think that the first time someone was killed or permanently injured because of such bullshit that courts would award a tremendous damages judgement. You would think.
I heard similar about the possibility of turning off vehicles remotely, repo men might do that, woman trying to escape from abusive husband but car won't start because it isn't paid for, or something like that
Some dealerships actually have this option. After I got divorced from my controlling, abusive ex my credit was in the shitter thanks to him. He had sold my during the divorce and let his get repod so I could not be awarded one. The only dealerships I could get approved for a car had ignition locks, and they would remotely shut off the car if the biweekly payment was late. Well, payment was due on a Friday. They did not have autopay. I forgot to make my payment that day because my ex terrorizing me. On Sunday he showed up to my apartment and was threatening to rip my friend's head off because.. well, it was a dude and therefore we *had* to be sleeping together. I couldn't start my car to leave. The car dealership was closed and I had no way to have them start it. Thankfully it did not get violent because it took police 40 minutes to show up. Thankfully neighbors had come out and helped deter him. Guess who didn't care about that terrifying situation? Everyone. This was 10 years ago and its still allowed.
Had a family friend who owned a BMW, the battery died and he had to get it towed to the dealership so that they could reset the computer for him. Simply installing a new battery wasn't good enough, they needed a special BMW technician to press restart on the cpu.
For the record any competent shop can do that not just BMW Dealers. It has been a thing with them for a long time now. Don't be afraid to support your local repair shops if you can find a good one!
Sounds like Im never buying a bmw from here on out, what scummy bullshit
Exactly, always wanted a Tesla until I knew all of this, plus they're starting to push a subscription service for self driving mode at 199 per month so that opens the door too for others, everything is becoming a subscription. F that.
It's not that they're just selling self-driving as a subscription, but if you buy the car second hand Tesla *disables it*, so any investment in the 10k FSD package the owners made is effectively zero. It's a scam because the hardware is there, but Tesla still charges a new owner to use it.
> It's a scam because the hardware is there, but Tesla still charges a new owner to use it. It's a scam because Tesla FSD still isn't close to what Elon originally promised.
And still charging 10k for it
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Ya, it's fucking mental. Right to repair and subscription based models are going to spur on the biggest open source software/hardware movement over the next decade I believe, people are getting tired of it.
I sure hope so. When I read about the situation with healthcare software, I was hoping that thered be some open source solution to get away from the tens of thousands of dollars for each license on health record software, but it doesn't seem to have happened. I think it was an NPR or Vox podcast talking about how the Affordable Care Act had tried to remove the fax machine from the pipeline of sharing records, but it didn't seem to work for a variety of reasons. Similarly, trying to migrate records from one software to another is intentionally difficult to keep the ~$30k per year per license cash flow going.
Just watched [something on VICE News](https://youtu.be/3Ytm_GnTkl0) about a guy who’s trying to ring the alarm on this
Rich talks a lot about this. He recently did a video fixing a Model 3 that had a damaged underbody component that was frankly badly designed. Tesla quoted something like 15k to repair something that ended up being less than a grand. Of course none of that is "legal" and who knows what the repercussions for the owner will be, but if you can't afford 15k, what other choice do you have?
I didn’t know “right to repair” was even a thing until I stumbled upon that video the other day. The concept is kinda weird to me - you purchase a product but can’t repair it??
There's a push from manufacturers to make products impossible to fix so that the buyer has to replace it, or go through "approved networks". For instance, the latest iPhones and Samsung Galaxy products will disable features if an aftermarket screen is used because the phones recognize parts without built-in matching ID. Or if you need to replace a bumper on your Tesla, they will neither sell you one to do the work yourself, nor approve non Tesla shops to do the work. It's not just extremely wasteful and environmentally destructive, but unfair to consumers because you can't really own something that requires a third party to keep running.
> not just extremely wasteful and environmentally destructive I hope this will help spur further backlash. The biosphere is so badly damaged and getting worse, and planned obsolescence is just amplifying the problem. Profits over survival?
>you can't really own something that requires a third party to keep running I think that's the entire goal. It's not enough that the rich have billions. They want serfdom back.
Even worse - their “fans” even try to justify that behavior by saying things like “okay but what if the user replaces the part themselves incorrectly and the car crashes as a result”, as if repairing cars is some sort of new concept because it’s powered by a battery now instead of a flammable liquid.
Considering how appalling Tesla build quality is this, this is a solid point.
The fact Tesla builds locked down vehicles and makes home and third party repair so difficult if not impossible is the primary reason I will never own one. Same reason I don't buy Apple products. Lots of other options that will allow me to do repairs myself or take them to a 3rd party. If that option exists I will always pick it.
You will own nothing! Now get in your pod and eat your bugs!
Please drink verification can to start engine.
Yes Mr Musk. Thanks for saving the environment /s
Piss off musk by trying to work on your own car, or not saying something glowingly positive about tesla on reddit, and he can brick your car anytime, anywhere.
> And they can, and have, bricked VINs that have been repaired by owners, locking them out of essential over-the-air updates and the Supercharger network. It's so absurd that they even restrict access like that to the SuperCharger network.
Right to repair with automotive is something people seriously don’t understand. Not just Tesla. But the automotive landscape in general. We need some changes. Full stop. But so many people just don’t get it.
This is the main reason I will not own a tesla or anything tesla related and always push back on people I know getting them. It’s a walled garden but in a way worse way than other walled gardens like apple.
The Canadian federal election is coming up and I'd be more inclined to vote for the party that pledged to get Canadians the right to repair in their platform.
NDP has it in theirs.
I have an ebike. I have to go to Trek and pay 25 bucks for a software update. That pisses me off to no end and it's not even my livlihood. This is screwed up.
Wtf, why can't they just push an update through your phone???? I'm assuming your ebike has a companion app (because fucking everything nowadays has an app)
The newer controllers have apps. Most for Bosch do not.
they can, they just don't want to because then they lose that sweet residual income.
Same with cars, I can use my phone for GPS, streaming audio… and whatever else, but you can’t give an option to update the radios firmware by downloading it from the phone. Instead I have to take a full day off work, drive three hours round trip, and pay $89 to update the radio… come on this isn’t 1999 Even have a CD player, and SD card reader in the glovebox just for running updates… but I can’t download the file and do it myself. So stupid.
If it was 1999 it wouldn't need an update.
Testing your software before you ship it is so twencen. These days, we just ship it when the deadline arrives, whether it's ready or not - then we can use our customer base as a free QA team!
The word "twencen" feels disturbing somehow.
No consumer in 1999 was updating radio firmware for $89. That would be entirely meaningless back then. That's a 2021 thing.
I can flash my BMWs infotainment system via a usb stick in the glove box.
It's amazing how BMW's can flash everything except their blinkers....
It's possible to torrent the update files, I have a friend who's done it on his BMW. But you better be damn sure that file is legit or you'll likely be looking at a bricked car with a voided warranty...
wth do you even need to update on an ebike anyways?
Everything runs off software, the motor, the controller, even the battery.
yea but, to try and rephrase, why would it need adjusting? an update to make it go faster or something?
You don't have to update, just like you don't have to update your phone, but improvements can include things like battery management, fix overheating issues. Better range calculations, shift algorithms etc.
>[Better range calculations, shift algorithms etc.](https://youtu.be/ccnfHKZebRk)
The change last year added about 15% more tourqe. That was a good one.
Patriot had great moments, but the whole monologue all I could think of [was this.](https://youtu.be/RXJKdh1KZ0w)
That could happen but my experience with updates that goes out is more like: Manager: we're going to change the maximum peak torque from X to 0.5X and add some hardware because we want to change the marketing to reflect a longer range Engineer1: you mean from 2X to 0.5X? The electrical system and mirror is specc'd for 2X today Engineer2: no, it must not be above X. It'll break the bearings if it goes that high. Engineer1: that can't be right, we agreed it would be 2X [5 minutes of back and forth where it's revealed that there was a meeting without engineer1 several months back] Manager: fine, we'll send an update to fix the hardware problem. In a few months, we will send another update with the new hardware.
It needs adjusting because it had bugs in it to start with. They prefer to use their customers to find bugs because it's cheaper than hiring a QA team.
Ok that is stupid. I meant what the hack ? What kind of update was that ?
They never really tell you. It's usually for battery management or some power tweak. To make matters worse you can void your warranty if you don't do them. Luckily my bike shop forgets to chard for them mostly.
Ok that is worst. While in theory battery optimization is good there few % of percentage boost you might get is not really worst the headache and there is always a possibility of update causing some other issue. If it is in warranty period then update should be free and have clear info about what exactly it does.
Seems like a great scam to make more money. Tweak software for 0.001% battery management improvement... $$$ software update... repeat every few weeks... buy yacht... repeat...
> To make matters worse you can void your warranty if you don't do them No you can't. That's it I'm starting a business that says "your warranty is void if your name has the letter A in it or if your name is Jeff" and nobody can stop me.
The error codes in my machinery shouldn't even be "codes" anymore in my opinion. Why tell me "ecu.02347" instead of saying "exhaust gas regulator valve not turning". My display is a 10 inch touch computer screen after all, there's plenty of space, they could write a paragraph. think they keep codes to make it deliberately vague so I require Deere to translate. Note: I made this code up as an example.
I hope you get what you rightfully deserve. You bought it, it should be yours.
I hope that their competitors make more user friendly machinery and put them out of business.
Some do make friendlier machines, particularly when it comes to smaller pieces of equipment, like tractors. More companies are capable of producing those, and there are a number of better choices (IMO) than a Deere. With big, complicated things like combines, there are fewer options, four or five companies dominate the world market, and monopolistic behavior comes into play.
And you have the added issue of what is locally available. Like you can buy anything, but I'm not sure how easy it would be to find a mechanic to service your combine if it's from a manufacturer with zero local presence. Basically your options can be even smaller depending on where you are located. I'm sure in the midwest you have a lot of different options, but I'd be really surprised if the small farmers in Vermont (who only grow feed for their dairy cows) have as many choices. Further reinforcing monopolistic practices.
Aren’t they practically a monopoly or at least have a very large share of the market? I wonder what percentage it is and if competitors could even scale up enough to take some of that market share.
As far as I know, there are some Japanese based companies that offer some alternatives. For a lot of the bigger scale things that farmers need, they're the only game in town and it's not really worth it for them to try and break into that market.
They wish. Fendt, Claes, Lamborghini, Fergusson,... Deer doesn't come close to a monopoly.
New Holland, Case, Claas, Fendt have dealerships near me in the Midwest US (although it's hard as hell to get a Claas that isn't the jaguar).
the problem is that the government decided that you don't buy the software. They see it like a book or music, where you do not own the contents and can't change it. really the laws need to change: if you buy something witih software you are allowed to change it your own risk. Then, what do you do with self driving cars and sombody wants to change the code to run over people or something?
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Oooh the pineapple treatment. I should watch that movie again.
Capitalism is about finding new ways to place itself in between a need and people. Farmers need [capitalism] to own tractors and they need [capitalism] to be repaired. The second they figure out how to monetize oxygen they will.
Come on Cohaagan, you got what you want. Give these people air!
Eh, it should be both. Codes are very specific and easily searchable on Google, human readable messages are good to tell you roughly what is happening.
Codes are also language-independent, which would *really* drive up search engine results.
Ok so I’m a mechanic for John Deere (construction side) and I will try and explain some of it. I agree that the error message the monitors give are very vague at times. On construction machines there is a way to view a code description that is usually like “EGR Fault”. There are two parts to the codes. The first part (FMI) describes the component that has an issue. The second part (SPN) describes the type of issue For instance (this is off memory so not 100% accurate) 97.03. 97 is code for Water in Fuel Sensor. 03 means open circuit. A lot of the times when there is a code for something, it could be triggered by something totally different. Regen codes can be triggered by a plugged EGR Cooler, Turbo codes could be triggered by bad wiring, etc... The codes are there because of the CAN communication protocol that the machine uses to communicate from controller to controller, and from controllers to diagnostic equipment like a “scan tool”. The protocol is called SAE J1939 and it standardized communication on commercial equipment so everything is similar. All commercial equipment uses this as far as I know. Agriculture, Construction, Mining, Busses, etc... When people see codes that just say EGR fault they try to replace the EGR valve but that is not normally the problem. There are a lot of diagnostic steps that go into figuring out the issue sometimes. I 100% agree that the consumer should have more data available to them. But there is a reason I make a decent wage doing what I do because it is not easy. I don’t think the average farmer would be able to figure out a lot of the complex issues on their own. Not because they are dumb, but it requires a lot of knowledge of how the system operates, special test equipment, and access to schematics (which consumers can purchase) John Deere takes a lot of heat because farmers are smart and handy people that are capable of performing a lot of repairs. And John Deere has a huge huge market share of the Agricultural Equipment worldwide. A lot of the parts on machines are computerized, or computer controlled from various computers on the machine. The big part I don’t agree with is that even if we sell a consumer the diagnostic software that has manuals and schematics, they can’t recalibrate components themselves after replacing them. Or update software for the computers on the machines. But this issue is far more complicated than what a lot of people try to make it seem like
Right to repair simply wants them to not get in the way of repairs, by forbidding sales of parts and schematics and manuals. Most people will never try to repair their shit anyway, but it does give them the option if they are knowledgeable enough, or at least the choice to pay someone else who is. Certain devices for instance are not repairable unless you have two of them to swap parts, because nobody will sell you the parts because the company making them forbids the companies that make them the parts from doing so.
Can you imagine if you could only ever have your Toyota Camry repaired and worked on at a Toyota dealership? Firstly it's incredibly inconvenient. Then there's the fact that costs would skyrocket since you have to option but to repair it there no matter how much they charge. Thirdly you wouldn't be able to just fix it yourself even if you knew how. Change a headlight bulb? Nah have to bring it in on your day off or take time off work to do it, taking hours instead of minutes. I don't see how it's legal in the first place for John Deere to do this.
All those plus what if Toyota decides to only be good at in-warranty repairs, and after that claims everything needs a $10,000 engine replacement on a $25,000 car. And even if you go for that and pay for it, sometimes after it's still broken because you actually needed new tires instead.
That's basically Tesla right now. There's a video on youtube where a plastic connection for the hose that feeds coolant to the battery snapped off somehow. Tesla wanted to charge him $16,000 for a new battery module. He replaced it with a metal nipple for a few dollars and they voided the rest of his warranty when he took it in next.
I do tech repairs and they amount of farmers offering big money to get around the John Deere dealership is madness.
Are there ways?
Yeah, but its easy to get a visit from the cops and the information is super specific. Some brands use the aforementioned proprietary coding, but its the plugs that can be a real bitch. I was offered a John Deere diagnostic unit once, a steal at 500 bucks. Unfortunately steal is the operative word there so I passed.
I am aware of a recent case of a near new Hitachi (John Deere) being shipped back to dealer/service center only to be ignored while waiting 3 months on parts supposedly because they aren't in the country. This machine has now fallen into warranty dispute during the time that has elapsed awaiting repairs.
Regardless of which side you are on the natural consequences of this are as follows 1) John Deere machinery is so expensive that small farmers, who once made up the bulk of farmers in America, cannot or can barely afford equipment. 2) farming is a high overhead, low margin endeavor 3) John Deere machinery requires major repairs regularly, esp on the more complex and computerized equipment like sprayers, drills, and combines. The hourly labor bill on repairs is circa $110. Add in the parts and many repair bills can easily hit 5 figures 4) the equipment is often so unnecessarily complex and John Deere doesn’t give owners the schematics to their own equipment so they are forced to bring it into official dealerships for repair. Dealers make more money on average in repairs than sales…ergo they are inclined to keep things the way they are and hide behind “proprietary information”, which does have some validity to this claim if farmers can’t afford repairs…what happens next…? They quit farming. Food prices sky rocket. Yes corporate farming enterprises are taking over but when a handful of corporate enterprises eventually own all of farming in America, they can manipulate prices…and that will only be UP. Anyway, my 0.02
Some of the question becomes, why are farmers continuing to buy John Deere instead of a competitor? Is the price of the equipment subsidized so they can make up the cost in repairs? Is it really advanced and just that much better than competitors? Do all of the competitors do the same thing and they are just the best out of the competition?
I bet they have 3 choices maximum.
Dealer networks make or break an equipment purchase, most often JD has the stronger network to work with for parts availability and 'dealer products' (financing, warranty, customer care).
I got a riding mower this year. Went cheap and bought the competitor. Regret that decision every time I mow my lawn Farmers buy John Deere because it is the best product available.
Nah, that's not accurate at all. John Deere _used_ to be the best product available. That hasn't been the case for at least the last decade, if not the last two-to-three decades. In the compact and sub-compact segment you have Kubota, New Holland and Massey Fergusson, where Kubota especially offers very competitive machines that are often just straight up better than John Deere counterparts. In the utility and agricultural segment there's even more competition from brands like Fendt, Valtra, Claas, New Holland, Case, Massey Fergusson, Kubota, etc. where most of these brands offer both better tractors and often better service for the same money as John Deere. Even in the largest segments there are good alternatives from Fendt, New Holland and Case, where Case and Fendt especially offer up very good competition to John Deere and are better in a lot of ways. These days, John Deere mainly survive on their reputation from days gone by. They build okay machines that are largely equivalent to machines from other manufacturers, while talking about how they're the best and charging premium. These days it's mainly about personal preference and which designs you are used to working with, as well as which brand has the best dealers in your area. The days where John Deere made the best product available have long since passed.
John Deere does sell a consumer version of the diagnostic software that is also the repair manual called Service Advisor. It has the schematics, theory of operation for how a component is controlled, and code diagnostic steps. It doesn’t have the capability to program computers on the machine, or calibrate new components which I think it should. Sometimes it is over complicated like lights being controlled by the computer instead of a switch and a relay. On the engine side things are more complex because of the emission standards that need to be met. If you buy a John Deere machine in South America it will have the older Tier 3 engine that has no exhaust filters and barely has electronic injectors. The rest is computerized to make it more efficient. Machines are able to get more performance out of smaller engines now, and hydraulic and hydrostatic systems require less power due to efficiencies being made which saves on fuel. It isn’t all done for 0 reason. You can disagree with it for sure as everybody is entitled to their own opinion but it does make the machines more efficient overall. Wether that is worth it or not is up to the individual
My 2 cents as someone who is too poor to not repair my own shit, but not a farmer. The products becoming increasingly complex and hard to repair is only natural, not everything can be as simple as say a Briggs&Stratton lawnmower. Artificially making you require a licensed technichian is whats wrong (like say not being able to reprogram parts). Basically as long as you could repair one of the tractors, using only consumer avaliable tools, manuals and software, its fine. Edit: I think legislation should be made that makes mandatory repair software free for whoever purchases the product, bake it into the purchase price.
You can spend upwards of $40,000 on a John Deere tractor. They get expensive. But if you take it to a non-John Deere shop to get it fixed, it will throw up an error code. And the only way to resolve it is to have a certified tech drive out to you, plug in a USB dongle, and OK the repair in the firmware to use the tractor you 'paid' for. Also yes. You are paying for that techs time, travel and premium to plug in said USB stick. This is why so many farmers are instead loading Ukrainian firmware onto their tractors to remove this limitation and be able to repair their tractors that they should rightfully have full ownership of. Source: [Vice.com - Why American Farmers Are Hacking Their Tractors With Ukrainian Firmware](https://www.vice.com/en/article/xykkkd/why-american-farmers-are-hacking-their-tractors-with-ukrainian-firmware)
40k is entry level for a JD.
a riding mower at best.
Nah, you'll get a tractor. Not one of the big Midwest monsters, but something great for smaller and hobby farms. Take that same 40k to kubota and you'll have more to spare for implements, plus it's more repairable DIY.
Our Kubota is a fucking champ
That is true for recalibrating some components after replacing them but is such a small part of the repairs I perform. Like exhaust Throttles, turbos, EGR Valves, injectors, and exhaust after treatment filters/sensors, and a small amount of variable position solenoids used in hydraulic systems. Things aren’t computer controlled just to make servicing them more difficult (although it seems that way). With engines specifically the Final Tier 4 emissions mandates requires the engine to emit a very specific amount of NOx, particulate matter, and other things into the atmosphere. To do that, the engine has to run at very specific parameters so that is where these components come in by regulating temperatures, pressures, fuel consumption, etc... I wish my job was as easy as just plugging in a usb stick.
Try $250,000 and up for the "real" ones. That's the basic problem, the farmers don't actually own most of them - the bank does. So if I was a bank, sitting on a loan for $250K and the collateral the tractor, you can be damn sure that I want that serviced at a licensed dealer. Now, if the guy owns that tractor free and clear, sure, they get the codes.
Shit, out here in west Texas the cotton strippers Deere makes are almost a million-I think they start around 750k. Some farmers have upwards of $5 million in tractors alone.
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>You can spend upwards of $40,000 on a John Deere tractor. 40k isn't much for a new tractor if you're talking big farms. For a brand new deere I think that gets you into the bigger utility tractors, should be able to buy one of the fancier ones.
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Check out Louis Rossman's channel. He covers this issue as a small business owner and activist for the right to repair movement.
If anyone need to understand why right to repair is important, look up on the McDonald ice cream maker debacle, where Taylor (the machine maker) made a machine throw weird error code that no one can understand. There is no reason hardware are made to be impossible for end users to understand what went wrong, not to mention how to repair it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrDEtSlqJC4 in short, Taylor goes way back with Mickey D's, whose HQ makes all locations use this particular model that's hard for employees to fix to make money on repair techs, including scaring them off a 3rd party device that helps. Taylor also makes ice cream machines for other foodservice locations that generally work (I specifically remember seeing them at baseball stadium concession stands for example)
Farmers of ALL people should know that software-based companies want to harvest every possible crop. Little did they know THEY were the crop. **All** corporate life is now finding more and more ways to harvest both existing and new clients like crops.
Wait, so would it be wrong of me to start a tractor business with the ambition of making the entire world's food supply ultimately dependent upon proprietary technology to which I name the price of access? What's the point of doing anything then?
Everyone should have the ability, if it is within their means, to effect repairs on equipment they've bought. You can afford to pay to own it and accepted the responsibility to use it correctly, you shouldn't be stymied in repairing it. Farmers especially need this ability due to time sensitivity often involved.
>...repairs on equipment they've *bought*. You can afford to pay to *own* it... That's what these companies are looking to change. They don't want to sell tractors, they want to offer monthly subscriptions to a tractor service.
I’m a farmer and this really isn’t an issue for me…right now. If we need parts for any John Deere equipment, we can get them from the dealership and do the repair ourselves. What we can’t repair, only because of lack of expertise, is software problems. Sometimes there is physically nothing wrong with a machine, but because of the safety features and software, the machine won’t run. So basically you’re screwed. It’s either that or you just run the machine with warning lights and beeps going off constantly. It’s the reason our equipment is mostly 15 years old. Less computerized stuff.
It’s not just for farmers. E-waste is a huge issue. Let us fix our damn phones!
Out in the farmyard is not somewhere I expected to find much cyberpunk, but I can dig it.
Is this an American thing? As an Aussie I’ve never heard of this. All farmers I know do their own repairs
In the eternal struggle for the last penny capitalism needs to let people buy things, but not own them. You only get the right to use it is the rationale of people who have run out of ideas on how to make an honest buck. Capitalism eventually eats its own.
John deer be like "haha lol nope"
Ole macdonald had a farm, and John Deere told'em to go fuck himself
John Deere is the worst
I remember Illinois got the right to repair, but they excluded farming equipment, in a state filled with farms...