John Deere dealerships are lobbying against right to repair

The issue at hand for farmers is the difficulty to repair their own farming equipment. Farmers could not do much to diagnose the problem with their tractor, as they did not have access to the diagnostic software themselves, only a John Deere dealer - not an independent mechanic or the farmer.

The personal story of farmer Schweitzer highlights two more themes, besides not being able to do the repair themselves. The repair through the dealer takes a long time, a month for the repair in his case, and had high costs, nearly $5,000 to replace a fuel sensor in his case, which he says a local independent mechanic would have charged only a small fraction of that. It is not an option to wait this long, "Unfair repair restrictions can mean farmers face unnecessary delays during tight planting and harvest windows. For some, these delays can mean that months of hard work and much-needed income vanish, devastating their business."

Tractors and combines have gotten more computerized, which makes it difficult, or nearly impossible, for to diagnose without access to this software.

Maine

States have tried legislating against these practices by strengthening the right to repair. In 2020, the following bill was considered in Maine, LD 1977 SP 679, which summarizes:

This bill establishes a consumer's right to repair electronic devices, excluding motor

vehicles. It requires manufacturers of electronic equipment to make available the

information and equipment necessary for diagnosis and repair of electronic equipment

problems. It prohibits original equipment manufacturers from limiting access to

diagnostic equipment and tools to authorized repair providers and requires manufacturers

to make this information and equipment available to independent repair providers under

fair and reasonable terms. The bill provides that a violation constitutes an unfair trade

practice.

The dealers are lobbying against this bill, and state a number of reasons. They question the definition of a motor vehicle, and regarding the legislation if it should apply to motor vehicles due to what they call safety concerns. One of dealers argues that right to repair is a touchy subject, as "a lot of us dealers sit back, and say we really almost don't want in essence people possibly working on our equipment".

At the same time, the delegates of the Nebraska Farm Bureau supported right to repair near unanimously (176-1) on a voice note to formally endorse the right to repair. The delegates represent 58,000 member families that want to have the right to repair of the products they own, and set strong standards for any legislation or agreement with equipment manufacturers.

The dealer reacts to the point of farmers wanting the right to repair by the following points:

• they provide technical manuals in order for people to be able to repair their own equipment
• what they might not have for the customers is the computer laptop that would allow them to plug to the tractor
• calls it a misnomer that farmers cannot hire technicians that come by to do this for them
• John Deere had this for 18 months, and provides customer service advisors, which customers can buy or subscribe to