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cmde44 t1_j8wgvhq wrote

Reply to comment by IncomeStatementGuy in [OC] How John Deere makes money: Agriculture, construction, and forestry equipment by IncomeStatementGuy

You know how you can't replace anything broken on your iPhone anywhere unless it's through an Apple store and it's performed by an Apple tech and costs an arm and a leg? John Deere does the same thing.

What used to be simple / or more basic maintenance work that a farmer could perform on their own is now not possible due to programming and must be performed by the dealership. This is an expense small farms can't take on and have been fighting for quite a while now.

U.S. Congress has been playing around with "right to repair" bills for years now; I believe on was just passed recently in regards to Deere, but it wasn't enough.

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abubuwu t1_j8wthso wrote

You lose your phone for a few days it's inconvenient but not a big deal.
You can't use a tractor for days to potentially weeks at a time and you can end up losing an entire crop field, that's the type of stuff that can literally lead to bankruptcy.

You don't own a JD tractor but "the vehicle owner receives an implied license for the life of the vehicle to operate the vehicle, subject to any warranty limitations, disclaimers or other contractual limitations in the sales contract or documentation"

https://copyright.gov/1201/2015/comments-032715/class%2021/John_Deere_Class21_1201_2014.pdf

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IncomeStatementGuy OP t1_j8wii81 wrote

Oh wow, that sucks! Are they mostly selling yearly maintenance contracts or is it pay as you have an incidence?

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cmde44 t1_j8wjquv wrote

Nope! They just put the diagnostic equipment behind programming paywalls that's only accessible to JD techs. Even if you could diagnose the problem without hooking to the machine electronically, you wouldn't be able to reprogram or finalize the fix once it was completed.

All of this was to make sure John Deere made the money on repairs using their techs and their parts. My company uses older series JD tractors (80's and 90's) and they are very easy to work on and not very electronic component heavy. A fuel pump goes out, we know what that looks like and we just fix it ourselves. Something simple like this might cost me $2,000 to do on my own but would cost $5,000 to have done by the dealership (these aren't real numbers of course).

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IncomeStatementGuy OP t1_j8wk4pq wrote

Wow... that just sounds like a stupid business practice that disgruntles their customers.

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Wise_Mongoose_3930 t1_j8x577h wrote

They're taking advantage of their market dominance, but it's certainly a risky play that has lost them tons of goodwill.

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