Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

farms.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 270 posts

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#171

Post by mitchell_h »

mikey_p wrote: post #163
FractalParadigm wrote: post #49

I just want to throw my 2¢ out there, as a mid-20's who went to a high-rural-population high school, there's an entire new generation of farmers who have a) accepted that Deere's need constant/regular service calls, and b) don't care to learn how to fix it (or older equipment) themselves. At the end of the day farming is just a business same as any other, it's the same reason why a lot of trucking companies lease the…

Not sure what scale you're talking about, but Kubota doesn't really compete with Deere on larger tractors. I don't see any tracked options from Kubota and their tractors don't really go much over 200 horsepower. Deere and Kubota only really compete at the smaller/utility side of things. Also the reason people get locked into Deere isn't just the tractors, but the vertical integration. Can you run your John Deere NT o…

I live in an extremely rural area. The Deere integrations are a huge reason. Another that's not talked about is Deere field service. It's just DAMN GOOD. If you're running a serious tractor(7-9 series ) and it's the middle of planting/harvest hours can be the difference between red and black margins. Deere will roll out a team with 30ft trailer of parts out in hours if you have an issue. CaseIH will sorta match this, kubota and New Holand will simply not.

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#172

Post by defenestration »

freeopinion wrote: post #162
buro9 wrote: post #37

No-one wants to sell hardware any longer, it's not as profitable as providing it on a subscription (dare we say "rent") and forcing all support, maintenance and additions to go through your channels as part of the subscription package. Unfortunately this trend is everywhere now. It happened to servers, media, has started to happen to cars... but it's happened already to agricultural hardware. Super profitable if you…

Done right, this could actually be better. I own a lawn mower. In fact I usually own two lawn mowers--the new one and the one I just need to repair a bit. All of my neighbors own lawn mowers. We all use our lawn mowers about an hour per week. It's extremely wasteful to purchase 5 lawn mowers to perform 5 hours of mowing per week. We could all hire Suwanda down the street to mow our lawns, but that would cost a lot mo…

I thought about this a lot. What if we just share a lot of tools with our neighbors. It will prevent waste and free up space in your house. However, for me, it's more convenient to have my own tools. I have the freedom to mow the lawn whenever I want. Also on that sunny afternoon when all the other neighbors also want to mow their lawn. And I want a tool that's in the right condition. When I have time to do a job around the house, my tools should work. Not broken, dirty or missing a part. And I don't want a difficult conversation with my neighbor about it. Sharing and borrowing tools with my neighbors directly is fine for me. Co-owning or continuously renting together is not my cup-of-tea.

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#173

Post by nimbius »

diesel engine mechanic by trade here, and ive followed this topic with interest for about five years now. Its similar to large over-the-road trucks in that its ultimately manufacturers catering to large fleets instead of owner/operators.

most farms in America are corporate monoliths. "farmers" here want mttf, mtbf, metrics, and a projection of how many cam chains, PTO knuckles, lockout converters, etc... they will need to buy in 30 years of depreciable service for a machine. They want to be able to carve the machine they own down to the last cent...the only way to do that is to turn your IH or Komatsu into a rolling cloud. even the windshield wipers get a sensor.

smaller farms with actual farmers that wear hats and overalls already balk at a million dollar sticker shock from a harvester, and if you ever go to a farm and take a look around, most tractors there are nearly sixty years old. the priority is farming, not investor return. The tractor needs to perform its stated function first before anything else matters. service interval warnings and degraded performance alerts here are a failure condition the farmer works around. they arent incentivized to stop what theyre doing at 4:15 AM and call up the local JD dealer 143 miles away for an appointment. there isnt a second tractor.

If legislation isnt passed, ultimately youll end up with what commecial trucks got in response to sensor overkill: Gliders. gliders are 60 year old truck drivetrains and engines that get a new cab and body parts, and get recertified for the road. they belch smog and roar like a freight train at idle, but all thats grandfathered into EPA legislation. New manufacturers get to crank out fleet machines at high prices, and owner/operators get their old reliable filling the parking lot with NOx and waxy sulfur haze at 4 am. they become a market that manufacturers refuse to tap, because it cannot be fully exploited to the disadvantage of the operator.

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#174

Post by DoingIsLearning »

x86_64Ubuntu wrote: post #161
DoingIsLearning wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason that happens with road vehicles is because you actually have diagnostics standard ISO 22901, which enforces at least partially interoperability. Actual config/ROM changes are still heavily protected by manufacturers and are limited to authorized dealers.

People have all kinds of tuners that they throw in their cars. And you never hear about a manufacturer being sued into oblivion because someone threw a garbage tuner with garbage settings into their car.

As a simple counter example you can't tune Front Radar calibration for AEB (Automatic Emergency Breaking).

A manufacturer can obviously do it. However, if that was allowed in the field, you would likely have whiplash injuries at best or fatalities at worse.

My point is some things are 'open' in some popular vehicles for which people have reverse engineered stuff.

But there is no liability interest from manufacturers in having this sort of thing in user space.

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#175

Post by petewailes »

sumedh wrote: post #120
petewailes wrote: post #22

Background: grew up in farming communities, live in a farming community, almost everyone around us farms. Repairable tractors would be a huge boon. I wish to anyone listening that Deere, New Holland, Valtra, Fendt and co would produce properly repairable, open heavy hardware. Deere is the worst in this, but the rest of the industry isn't anywhere near as good as it should be. There's a reason you see old Defenders, F…

What about Mahindra tractors, they are pretty big in India and they sell in US as well.

They're not even vaguely comparable in terms of utility. I may be wrong, but I think their most powerful unit comes in at mid 70'shp, with a max of ~300Nm torque. Compare that to a midrange JCB Fastrac like a 4190, which has north of 200hp and what, 950Nm? The newer ones are approaching 1500Nm, and a John Deere 9 series can get you up beyond 600hp and getting on for 3kNm of torque?

It's just not in the same league. They're very much light duty tractors.

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#176

Post by Der_Einzige »

WalterBright wrote: post #23
louis___ wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This rethoric has been proven false in the software development ecosystem. Nowadays almost all new programming languages are open-source, and *nix OS softwares have won the cultural battle over Windows in the devops community. > the supposedly bad capitalist IP system is also the reason for innovation and cooperation For me this is as much a myth as the good old "the wealth trickles down from the rich to the poor"

There's nothing anti-free market about Open Source.

Except copyleft, the GNU project, and all other viral licenses

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#177

Post by swiley »

HPsquared wrote: post #124
swiley wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of people don't care about their right to vote but we should all freak out when it gets taken away from them.

People don't get to just buy a different brand of government though, unlike tractors.

Commodities tend to have very low profit margin. It wouldn't be surprising if organizations like John deer sell their tractors at a steep loss temporarily which could prevent farmers from being able to buy other brands.

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#178

Post by etempleton »

FractalParadigm wrote: post #49

I just want to throw my 2¢ out there, as a mid-20's who went to a high-rural-population high school, there's an entire new generation of farmers who have a) accepted that Deere's need constant/regular service calls, and b) don't care to learn how to fix it (or older equipment) themselves. At the end of the day farming is just a business same as any other, it's the same reason why a lot of trucking companies lease the…

I also grew up in a rural high school with a large farming population. I categorize farmers into three types:

1. Professional - Usually highly educated, good business sense. Probably obtained an advanced degree in agriculture science, though not always, some self-educate very successfully. These farmers generally do not like John Deere and think they are overpriced, not as good as they once were, and find the lack of right to repair infuriating.

2. Uneducated - Likely barely passed high school due to a complete lack of effort, because they were going to be farmers and school, "couldn't teach them nothin." Farming is an identity for these individuals. Buying a John Deere is part of that lifestyle. Some kids grow up with a Ferrari on their wall, these kids had a John Deere tractor. The problem with these individuals as it relates to business is that they do not understand business or accounting and probably only have a rudimentary understanding of ag science. They overspend on equipment and their only basic ag science understanding leaves them unable to adapt as well as the pros to droughts, infestations, and other adverse conditions.

3. Gentleman Farmers - Usually educated, but perhaps in an unrelated field. Farming is a hobby. Perhaps a retirement "job." If they make money, great, if not, well, they have money to spare. They buy John Deere, because they can afford it and because it seems like the obvious choice. They are happy to pay their local dealer to fix or repair their tractor, it is something they don't have to worry about and costs are not a real going concern. Breaking even is a success.

Both the less educated farmers and the gentleman farmers treat John Deere tractors as a status symbol (every other farmer know exactly how much a John Deere tractor costs). And when you know how much they cost it is like seeing someone drive by in a Ferrari or Lamborghini, because, well, they cost as much as a Ferrari or Lamborghini, if not more. The professional farmers could care less because they are running a business.

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#179

Post by DubiousPusher »

Casperin wrote: post #135
randomdata wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must know my neighbour. He was running a Kubota for a year or two, but it didn't take him long to replace it with a Deere. I have most of the major brands in my shed. I don't particularly care much about what colour I'm using. Purchases have been made based on cost, which has included some green equipment when a great auction find has been found. My experience says that JD has the UX nailed. When you're spending…

This made me think of how many developers (who spend 10 hrs/day in front of their screen) choose Apples products. A linux machine might be better on performance, maintainance, and all that, but Linux does not care about UX the way Apple does.

I actually don't know any engineers that use apple. A lot of graphic artists and designers for sure.

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#180

Post by DubiousPusher »

_wldu wrote: post #64
FractalParadigm wrote: post #49

I just want to throw my 2¢ out there, as a mid-20's who went to a high-rural-population high school, there's an entire new generation of farmers who have a) accepted that Deere's need constant/regular service calls, and b) don't care to learn how to fix it (or older equipment) themselves. At the end of the day farming is just a business same as any other, it's the same reason why a lot of trucking companies lease the…

The issue is really about freedom. If you don't care that a company can decide whether or not you may farm, then rent their equipment. If you do care, then you want 100% control of that equipment. Or as close to 100% as you can get. It's sort of comparable to writing software in C (an ISO standard with many open source compilers) to run on your commodity x86 hardware versus writing an iOS Apple Store app. In one case…

It's not that simple. There are features of these high end tractors such as automation and satellite guidance that allow you to change the scale of your operation. In a sense, you have to make a choice about what kind of business you're going to be at the same time as you're choosing your equipment.
Post reply on HN