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My question is what is wrong with the other brand? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGCO
My question is what is wrong with the other brand? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGCO
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahindra_Tractors FTFY. Seriously though, the point isn't that there are alternatives, but that one should have the right to repair whatever machine they own .
I absolutely endorse Mahindra but if youre outside TN theyre kinda hard to come by. the tractors are less reliable than more modern western designs but faster and easier to repair by far. new head seals rocker arms valve guide seals and an oil change was 6 hours of labor and i actually started to enjoy it. bolts are over-built for what you need in some cases. the gyrovator has some of the beefiest engine mounts ive come across in a long time (looking at you Western Star)
im sure every one comes with a free "you dont want that" from the usual scumbags at the dealer but if you have an engine lift you can service your own Jivo very easily from tip to tail. the only reason our shop saw one was because the owner couldnt safely work on the engine (gyrovator series) as he was 71 years old.
While this is great news; I unfortunately have to wonder how effective this is going to be. We need likely a much, much larger subset of farmers joining such a class action lawsuit - ideally from as many states as possible - to get this to change. Out of their greed; John Deere will fight this with all they have. I still think the best solution to this is still a startup that can create tractors that don’t require re…
I've been hearing about farmers trying to organize for at least the past 5 years to tackle this. I'm not going to hold my breath for much progress, sadly. An "open tractor" from a new company is also going to be hard to justify with how thin margins are with farming. Maybe some techies can get together to make repair easier. New electronic control boards, diagrams of how to machine their own replacement parts, etc. f…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I still think the best solution to this is still a startup that can create tractors that don’t require repairs by a first party. You're still going up against massively entrenched and influential opposition that could likely undercut a startup's prices and then raise them again once the competition dies. We saw it with the rideshare companies. Their business models are flexible enough to take losses when necessary…
The issue is they are operating in the printer ink model where the initial price is discounted based on expected future revenue. That’s a hard nut to crack because any open competition is fighting from a seeming price disadvantage.
> That’s a hard nut to crack because any open competition is fighting from a seeming price disadvantage.
What other markets are there, where new entrants face the same problem?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahindra_Tractors FTFY. Seriously though, the point isn't that there are alternatives, but that one should have the right to repair whatever machine they own .
disclosure: im a diesel mechanic by trade and Mahindra's are a real treat!! I absolutely endorse Mahindra but if youre outside TN theyre kinda hard to come by. the tractors are less reliable than more modern western designs but faster and easier to repair by far. new head seals rocker arms valve guide seals and an oil change was 6 hours of labor and i actually started to enjoy it. bolts are over-built for what you ne…
How do Kubota and Mahindra compare side-by-side?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
disclosure: im a diesel mechanic by trade and Mahindra's are a real treat!! I absolutely endorse Mahindra but if youre outside TN theyre kinda hard to come by. the tractors are less reliable than more modern western designs but faster and easier to repair by far. new head seals rocker arms valve guide seals and an oil change was 6 hours of labor and i actually started to enjoy it. bolts are over-built for what you ne…
I had a Kubota and loved it. Easy to work on, parts readily available, affordable and no more electronics than it really needed to have. How do Kubota and Mahindra compare side-by-side?
John Deere is not unique. All common rail engines require a visit from a "certified engineer" who has access to the software. This is terrible in the marine industry where you can't get one in the middle of the ocean and you can't repair yourself either. What do you do? Do you sail to a harbor? You can't unless you have a sailboat. Get a tow to the nearest Volvo/Yanmar dealer? You must be kidding, thousand of miles away?
So yes, that lawsuit makes sense.
As for a class action lawsuit some of the comments in the thread misunderstand how it works: 1. Secure one or two plaintiffs. Two or three is better. Make sure they represent owners well: no conflicts, not paid to sue, good/clean plaintiffs. 2. Find the right location for the lawsuit. Location is very important in the US. Not only the state but the county. This is VERY important. Good plaintiff lawyers know where to sue. 3. Get your judge to certify the class action. "this lawsuit is on behalf of all users of John Deere tractors, etc". This is ALSO very important. John Deere will fight that. They will claim that those two plaintiffs do not represent the class, blabla. 4. Fight in court. Other plaintiffs have nothing to do. If the class action lawsuit wins on behalf of thousands of owners this represents a lot of money. It costs nothing to plaintiffs. Lawyers typically get 30%, sometimes less. If they are too greedy (they all are) the judge may object and cut down the fees. 5. Users can “opt out” of the payment if John Deere loses in court after appeals. Most plaintiffs do not opt out because they can’t afford to fight big corporations.
Unfortunately corporations are not always fair. We have seen many, many cases when poor farmer John just could not pay the exorbitant costs imposed by John Deere. Understand that these people have learned to be self-sufficient. They weld their broken massive tools in the field. They call the mobile repair shop to fix and tune their engines. Now they can't do anything. That massive, expensive John Deer is like a beached whale. Nothing you can do about it.
Hence class action lawsuits in the US. Some of them are abusive (i.e.recent att phone bills, 100M customers collect $1, lawyers collect $30M), but sometimes there are no other ways (asbestos, workplace injuries, brain damage near chemical waste from mining). Folks outside the US struggle to understand the system.
It is why today you can enjoy Non-Apple store repairs to your phone, non OEM parts for your car or non branded cartridges for your printer.
I wish that such a lawsuit will force John Deere to change its practices, like it forced other companies to do so.
My question is what is wrong with the other brand? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGCO
You assume the customer has the information needed to make that decision before the purchase. In reality, most people don't have a reliable way to compare the repairability of products/brands before making a purchase. Even if they did, if the majority of the market doesn't valie repair, that can easily ruin it for those who do. It especially punishes those who are behind economically and can't afford replacements or…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had a Kubota and loved it. Easy to work on, parts readily available, affordable and no more electronics than it really needed to have. How do Kubota and Mahindra compare side-by-side?
kubota parts were faster for us to order since theyre used in construction all over the US and theyre a little more interchangeable, but you make that difference up with mahindra because you can fix more of it in the field to begin with.
I lived in a area where there were a lot of small and fairly poor farmers. I also had a machine shop. You can see where this is going: come harvest time tons of stuff that had been sitting for a year suddenly had to work 16 hours per day and predictably quite a bit of it would break in the field, usually simple stuff, bearings, shafts, welds. So once word got around that I was an ok welder with a machine shop every year a couple of farmers would find their way to my door with broken balers, older harvesters and s on. Fixing those would keep us in produce and meat for months. But I never ran into a Mahindra, though they were in use.