https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/16/john_deere_doom/
Edit: 'Sick Codes confirmed that he believes John Deere failed to comply with its GPL obligations. "I'd love for them to come forward and explain how they are in compliance," he said.'
But yes, if they would own it, a right to repair would be very welcomed...
If you see a modern tractor on the streets next to a Ferrari, the tractor is probably the more luxurious and expensive vehicle.
Maybe they're really reliable and people are just finding out now...
Also, remember that you don't need to prove that the design is sensible, only that it isn't deliberately malicious.
A lot of manufacturers have alligned their warranties to be 2 years long in the EU because they don't want to deal with the above, but it's completely 100% legal to offer a 1 year or 6 months warranty in the EU on any item. Your rights with regards to seller's responsibility are not affected by it.
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 and explain it to you.
Yet meanwhile, suing in small claims will typically result in a big company using lawyers, who will try to pretend the above is not true. They will also rack up large costs for the company. In the end, sometimes a lawyer will appear in small claims court beside a company employee. However the company employee will do the talking.
My cost to file is $100. My cost to serve (via courier with tracking + sig) was $10. The company I went after, a fortune 500 company, I suspect spent >$50k on lawyers. While small to the company, it is truly a way to level the playing field.
What I find amusing here is, you could sue for a replacement unit. Explain what you found. Where I am, the max resolution is $30k, so you could easily get a refund for the tractor. Citing this issue while describing all of this, could result in two outcomes.
1) Deere employee claims (in their defense) that a batch of units were defective. They then deliver a fixed unit to you. While not perfect, it would be amusing, because they'll have just spent $50k in paying lawyers, along with making a proper unit.
2) You just claim that the tractor is defective, you can't sell it as it is, except maybe for parts. And you're not sure most of them are usable (weird electronics), and even cite that Deere stuff apparently is designed to break without authorized repairs. So how can you in good faith, even try to sell it to anyone??
So you ask for your time, costs, and full replacement costs with another brand.
Adding your wage/hr is somewhat typical here, for calls, research, sawing it open, all of it.
--
Anyhow.
If #1 is chosen and it breaks again, then you can repeat the whole fun process.
And I do mean it is fun.
$100 + I filled out a 2 page form, and then fedexed it to them. Their lawyers kept pestering me, to which I simply said "No" and "I don't need to give you anything, there's no forced discovery". This too was very satisfying, when I kept in mind how each call to me cost the company probably about $1k.
I mean, literally I'm sure each 5 minute call was around that ballpark. It was sheer joy. (Just don't discuss any aspect of the case in these calls.)
Then there was a pre-trail meeting where I, the company rep, and a retired judge sat. I was told that "nothing said here can ever be used in court", which made it more fun. The system's attempt to resolve before trial. That too was fun, for I got to finally tell the company, over and over, how wrong they were.
Anyhow.
It's a fun process.
> Explain what you found. Where I am, the max resolution is $30k, so you could easily get a refund for the tractor.
While I haven't bought a tractor before from some searching and impression they seem much higher. If fair market value is that low, I can see how 1) works but if for 2 it caps out at $30K, it doesn't seem like it would get you a full replacement with another brand.
The loss to John Deere is funny but isn't it also a loss to the customer, who would hurt more from the lost tractor?
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.
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).
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 <thing> 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.
Obviously a small unreplaceable battery is not a good example for that discussion.
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.
Edit: they also failed to honour their warranty commitments, but that was secondary.
Microcontrollers with persistent memory are not expensive, so something like that would just be horrible design, not something you could even try to justify as a cost reduction.
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.
If you're low income, work 2 jobs, single parent, get home at 23:00 broken tired, want a meal but your fridge just broke down and everything is spoiled inside, you don't spend 2 more hours doing reasearch. You clean it, go to bed hungry, call repair in the morning (optional, if your hopes are high), and when they tell you it's not repairable, you get the first new fridge you can afford in a 10 min online search while on the bus/train/tram being late to work.
Reasearch, self-repair, is for wealthy people.
That's like saying you don't bother learning what illnesses your animals or crops may contract, and how to prevent/cure them, because you're not wealthy. Buying a book and reading it, to the improve your abilities, is time well spent.
Most maintenance on a tractor is not major, and require basic skill and parts. It's the companies that don't want this, they want specialized technicians to come out to replace an oil filter.
I have a 30 year old vacuum cleaner, which I continue to maintain, which mostly amounts to stripping it once every 10 years and cleaning out all the filters that caked up with fine dust. Definitely cheaper to strip it myself one evening, than to pay someone to do it, or purchase a new one. It is like an hour of work for years of service.
A tractor can be almost a million dollar item now, and nobody spending a million dollars should be doing so without doing some research.
There's a certain type of customer that wants the dealer to handle parts and repair. But those guys aren't the lawn mower segment.
Citation needed
However.. farmers are a weird bunch and they are blinded by brand loyalty or will only buy from an "American" company which ironically allowed JD to stomp all over them because of their dominant market position.
Nowadays a larger factor might be how close the next dealership/repair shop is. Some things are time critical, and when it breaks in this time, then you don't want to drive hours to have it fixed/get a part/ have a mechanic available.
There are some differences between the brands... And you can always be Clarkson and get a Lamborghini, even when it makes no sense ;-)
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
By looking at reviews or paying someone to evaluate the product.
>What if they’re the only provider in their region
Then there is an opportunity for competition. Or you can import a product from another region.
Make up your mind. Do you want people to read and write reviews, or don’t you?
And it's not like these things are always available from a source with reviews. Reviews for new models are less likely to cover repair-access issues that will arise in a few years' time.
No amount of legislation is going to prevent them from doing this. This settlement even proves that they can keep doing it with impunity!
> The settlement also includes an agreement by Deere to provide “the digital tools required for the maintenance, diagnosis, and repair” of tractors, combines, and other machinery for 10 years. That part is crucial, as farmers previously resorted to hacking their own equipment’s software just to get it up and running again. John Deere signed a memorandum of understanding in 2023 that partially addressed those concerns, providing third parties with the technology to diagnose and repair, as long as its intellectual property was safeguarded. Monday’s settlement seems to represent a much stronger (and legally binding) step forward.
So it’s back to as before in 10 years?
> While the agricultural manufacturing giant pointed out in a statement that this is no admission of wrongdoing
Welp, gotta sue again in the future, hopefully lobbied laws in place to prevent whatever forced them to settle by then!
You can thank the plaintiffs and their lawyers for accepting the settlement instead of pursuing a judicial remedy such as an injunction or finding of illegal behavior.
When I hear these kinds of "blame the consumer" apologetics it never resonates with me - I'm just not going to get on board with some hypothetical natural state where corporations are inherently bad like some sort of sick animal and it's on consumers to sacrifice and plan with care in order to help the rest of society deal with them.
Corporations are just big groups of people. If their victims can choose self sacrifice in order to help the group then the corporation people could just as easily do the same and that feels far more just to me.
99m is a drop in the bucket. They were probably expecting more.
You need to look at Deere stock after taking out the beta to the market.
I wonder if they'll throw in free credit monitoring with that?