John Deere employee responds to Right to Repair: Difference between revisions

← Older edit Newer edit →

VisualWikitext

@@ Line 30: / Line 30: @@
 I have heard people complain about the lack of parts availability. This does not come from the dealer or corporate. We will sell you every part to make a brand new tractor from parts if you would like. We can also get many OEM parts dating back to before 1960. The common ones we stock. I think what they might be referring to is aftermarket parts. I don't know how much control Deere has on aftermarket part availability. Once again I think supply has a lot to do with it. With being so few machines there just isn't much of a market for it. The only major company I am aware of for aftermarket parts is A&I products. There are a few other smaller ones but I don't know of any that deal with controllers. Also Deere hardly makes any of their own electronics. It is all outsourced to companies like Delco, Bosch, Lucas, Phoenix, Delphi, and others. So even electronic components inside of these devices I would think would be largely up to them to supply. And I know some of them are available because there is an independent company called Ag Express that specializes in agriculture electronic component repair and harnessing. Now maybe there is more going on behind the scenes I am unaware of stopping production of aftermarket parts for electronics but I don't know right to repair is going to fix it. As a side note you may want to try and contact Ag Express out of Sulphur Springs Indiana www.agexpress.com. They may be able to give you a lot more detail on the electronic repair side of things outside of the dealership than I could.
+Probably the largest real issue that could be fixed by right to repair is lack of third party diagnostic equipment. This was one of the big ones is [''sic''] the automotive industry. If you want to communicate with the machine you must purchase software from Deere. There is no other vendor that supplies a tool that will commentate [''sic''] with Deere equipment. If there was I would own it even having full time access to the dealer level software. Reason being redundancy. When someone comes out with a software update something isn't going to work right, almost guaranteed. In automotive this information had to be made available to other manufacturers. That's how for under $100 you can buy the cheap little code readers at your local auto parts store and not go to the dealership to read the code. These cheap little readers are very limited in what they can do. The professional grade fully functional versions of these are considerably more. I just asked my tool dealer what the top of the line one would cost. He replied with $11,695 for the device and $1499 for a one year subscription. This is a Snap-On brand with a model name of Zeus. For comparison the software from the dealership costs $2340 [''sic''] a year's subscription and you supply your own computer. If you don't want to download it the USB to install it is $35 and the cable to connect to a tractor is $1376.93. The software can run off a web browser on line, however I have the fully installed version on my computer so it works offline. It takes up over 140 GB on my drive. It contains almost every technical manual publication ever made by Deere. It takes a little bit of computer power to efficiently run. So the factory option is still probably more affordable at a total of $3751.93 plus the computer to run it than what the third party option would be at over $13,00 [''sic''] initial investment. But even at $3751 it would be hard to justify for an individual to own the program themselves. My dealership charges $105/hour for my time. So a customer would need me to work on a problem using the software for over 35 hours that first year to get a ROI and 22 hours every following year to cover the price of the subscription. I don't see this very likely. I do spend over 35 hours on customer machines but very rarely that much time diagnosing with the software.
+I could go on but it is getting very late and I feel I am making too many typos and grammatical errors. I will continue this another time.
+I have no problem with you using this information just so it is not being manipulated, twisted, distorted, edited, or used out of context to change its intended meaning. I am happy to assist however I can. Keep in mind though that I am not in any position of authority to make any definitive claims on the factual correctness of any of this. This is all information I have gathered over my years of training and experience along with educated assumptions. If there is a specific point or topic you would like verified I can try my best to find material at my disposal to validate it. Also if anyone presents information to you proving anything I said false please forward it to me. I like to be correct [''sic''] when I'm wrong so as to not spread inaccurate information and to educate myself.
+I will continue this another time explaining where I feel much of the farmers frustration comes from and why they incorrectly feel Right to Repair will fix it.
 </blockquote>