Farmer here. We only run equipment made before 2000 and all of our tractors are from the 1980s. We badly need right to repair.
You should check out Kubota stuff.
John Deere to pay $99M in right-to-repair settlement
71–80 of 137 posts
Re: John Deere to pay $99M in right-to-repair settlement
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Don’t comment if you don’t want to actually contribute. How are people supposed to know these things before buying the equipment. What if they’re the only provider in their region? There’s a billion reasons why your comment doesn’t contribute.
do your research before buying, they have this reputation ofr many years
it's like complaining about HP ink printer everyone was warning about for last 10-15 years at least
same should apply to Samsung TVs at least in the last 5-10 years
Re: John Deere to pay $99M in right-to-repair settlement
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is where small claims court can have a HUGE impact. Where I live, in small claims: * Lawyers are not allowed * There is no forced discovery. Sue John Deere, and they cannot ask for endless documents * There is no way to assign costs on loss. If you lose, you never pay costs for the person you sued (which makes sense -- no lawyers) * If you don't understand something, typically the judge will act as a mediator an…
>Then there was a pre-trail meeting where I, the company rep, and a retired judge sat. This is them trying to intimidate you right? Or settle pre-court at least? Not part of the actual process where some retired judge always mediates before trial? It reads as gross.
Many small claims court procedures, at least outside the US, include mandatory mediation that would fit this description, and there is nothing gross about it.
Given that a "retired judge" was present, I assume it was such a mediation meeting (i.e. the retired judge was most likely a neutral, court appointed mediator, whose job is basically to tell both sides to please come to an agreement, and potentially tell one side to pull their head out of their ass and stop being idiots before the court has to tell them that they are being idiots).
Re: John Deere to pay $99M in right-to-repair settlement
#74One of the most user-hostile companies on earth. My John Deere lawnmower came with a fuel gauge that runs off a CR2032 that's embedded in epoxy. The battery runs out of charge in about six months and the gauge stops working. If you saw the gauge open and replace the battery it doesn't start working again. If you disconnect the gauge the lawnmower won't start. Replacement gauges are $60.
Hot take: it takes mental gymnastics to think that planned obsolescence is not fraud.
I personally like to call it "forced obsolescence."
Forced obsolescence is when the consumer always buys the cheapest product that checks their boxes, regardless of build quality. This forces you to either use cheap parts that you know will break, or leave the market entirely. The consumer may bitch at "planned obsolescence", but when push comes to shove and they're looking for what their next is going to be, they only look at the price and features, not quality and longevity.
We should be re-framing this in consumer's minds, and list "price divided by warranty" as an important dimension to evaluate a product on.
Re: John Deere to pay $99M in right-to-repair settlement
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hot take: it takes mental gymnastics to think that planned obsolescence is not fraud.
Is there a bright line between cost reduction and planned obsolescence? Obviously a small unreplaceable battery is not a good example for that discussion.
I had an interesting situation where we had failure of a Thule bike trailer wheel and could see where the connection-to-the-trailer design had changed from an earlier version (from the company that Thule bought). The wheel functioned the same, but you could see a clear difference which fully explained the failure. I expect it was a cost optimisation, and we only encountered the failure because we used it very heavily.
Edit: they also failed to honour their warranty commitments, but that was secondary.
Re: John Deere to pay $99M in right-to-repair settlement
#76One of the most user-hostile companies on earth. My John Deere lawnmower came with a fuel gauge that runs off a CR2032 that's embedded in epoxy. The battery runs out of charge in about six months and the gauge stops working. If you saw the gauge open and replace the battery it doesn't start working again. If you disconnect the gauge the lawnmower won't start. Replacement gauges are $60.
Hot take: it takes mental gymnastics to think that planned obsolescence is not fraud.
It's consumer fraud. It's shareholder fraud. It's environmental fraud.
Products like this simply shouldn't be allowed on the market. As if we need to destroy the planet so my Mother can enjoy looking at her 401k balance in the morning.
Re: John Deere to pay $99M in right-to-repair settlement
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Then there was a pre-trail meeting where I, the company rep, and a retired judge sat. This is them trying to intimidate you right? Or settle pre-court at least? Not part of the actual process where some retired judge always mediates before trial? It reads as gross.
Many small claims court procedures, at least outside the US, include mandatory mediation that would fit this description, and there is nothing gross about it. Given that a "retired judge" was present, I assume it was such a mediation meeting (i.e. the retired judge was most likely a neutral, court appointed mediator, whose job is basically to tell both sides to please come to an agreement, and potentially tell one si…
Yes, exactly.
Re: John Deere to pay $99M in right-to-repair settlement
#78I live in a wine region in central Calif where everyone has a tractor. We bought a Kubota, enjoy using it and get a lot of work done with it. We have a neighbor that bought a new John Deere and for about a 3 month period we endured nothing but abuse from him because we didn't buy "American". Then his problems started...
Did he empathize with you after or he remained bitter?
Re: John Deere to pay $99M in right-to-repair settlement
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hot take: it takes mental gymnastics to think that planned obsolescence is not fraud.
Is there a bright line between cost reduction and planned obsolescence? Obviously a small unreplaceable battery is not a good example for that discussion.
I think there is: It is the line between "not spending extra money to make sure it works" and "spending extra money to make sure it won't work".
There is a related problem with warranty: an inferior third-party replacement part may cause damage to higher-quality original parts. There is a line here between "making sure you don't have to deal with follow-up damage caused by inferior parts" and "preventing the use of inferior parts". This is a bit more blurry because most cases won't be clear-cut, and dealing with them will be a burden on the original manufacturer.
I think it is important that we reward the nice players as much as we punish the bad ones. A blanket "all companies bad" just means that no company has an incentive to be anything less than bad.
Re: John Deere to pay $99M in right-to-repair settlement
#80One of the most user-hostile companies on earth. My John Deere lawnmower came with a fuel gauge that runs off a CR2032 that's embedded in epoxy. The battery runs out of charge in about six months and the gauge stops working. If you saw the gauge open and replace the battery it doesn't start working again. If you disconnect the gauge the lawnmower won't start. Replacement gauges are $60.
In EU, a product such as this would have a 2 year minimum warranty. How long was yours?