6 ms·

Bananas that stuff like this needs to get litigated in our society - if you asked 100 random people "should farmers be able to repair their equipment", you woul

• mothballed 2mo ago
  Until you tell them how easy it makes it to bypass emissions restrictions. My tractor was shipped with a screw turned down to <25hp to bypass emissions controls. I could turn that screw back up and have a ~35hp tractor, but of course, that would be illegal and make lots of environmentalists cry. Opening up John Deere tractors for right to repair virtually assures they will ~all be doing emissions deletes. Part of their lock-down was profit seeking, but the other half is that different vendors had different ideas interpretations of the law about how locked down the system had to be to prevent emissions tampering, and domestic companies more subject to US law were generally far more paranoid about it.
  • triceratops 2mo ago
    I don't understand, are 35hp tractors illegal under emissions rules? Then why even manufacture them and cripple them?
    • mothballed 2mo ago
      Tractors are legal above 25hp but it requires DPF, and at I want to say about 75, possibly more than that. Farmers generally hate DPF systems and will disable them the microsecond they get the right to repair. >Then why even manufacture them and cripple them? They cripple them because they know people want bigger tractor without emission control so they sell it as a less powerful tractor and then just expect people to break the law and turn the screw, and everybody is happy. ========= re: below due to throttling ======== >Thankfully, it's not illegal to own a screwdriver and nothing changes there. There's absolutely no relevance between right to repair (not right to break emission laws!) and the situation you describe. There is because on the John Deere tractors you can't set the "screw" unless you have right to repair the engine system. John Deere has no screw because they're in the US and they're too afraid of US regulators.
      • ori_b 2mo ago
        I don't understand what you're trying to say. Is this prevented today or not by the denial of the right to repair? It sounds like you are saying everyone is doing it today, so denying the right to repair doesn't affect the situation.
        • mothballed 2mo ago
          If you're a US company the vagueness of emissions law likely prevents a US company from hazarding doing it and instead locking down the repair of their power trains to ensure emission compliance. Korean companies get away with it because they don't give much a shit if they're banned from import, it can always be washed through another foreign company. John Deere can't try that sort of thing since being a household-name US company is their bread and butter for commanding a premium in the first place. ======= re: below due to throttling ======== >You pretty clearly said everyone is currently bypassing this, otherwise companies would not be putting in larger engines. Everyone is doing it on the import tractors with the screws. They are not doing it with John Deere tractors, which are locked down for emission compliance. John Deere is handicapped by the fact they're located in the US and regulators have more leverage on them to prevent the sort of right-to-repair which would enable emission bypassing. >Do what? What is not happening today that you think would happen if people were given the right to repair? What is happening today is people with John Deere are not able to unlock their tractor for repair and turn the "screw" like they can with import tractors. The very first thing they will do once they can "repair" is delete emissions controls. That's a big part of what the farmers were pissed about and why they wanted right to repair, they couldn't "repair" their tractor to not use DPF, etc on their domestic tractors.
          • ori_b 2mo ago
            Do what? What is not happening today that you think would happen if people were given the right to repair? You pretty clearly said everyone is currently bypassing this, otherwise companies would not be putting in larger engines. Is that wrong?
            • 2mo ago
  • snypher 2mo ago
    If we could get our operators to just run regen when they should, it wouldn't be an issue. They don't mind filling DEF and we don't mind paying for it.
    • trollbridge 2mo ago
      The bigger problem is when the DPF system stops functioning properly. This happens quite frequently, and is (by design) not a user-serviceable system. Then you can't "run the regen when you should". All of this to reduce "particulate" which is not the actual polluting part of diesel emissions, even though it is the part you can see. The polluting part is what you can't see. The EPA changed its rules a year ago to allow measuring NOx emissions (which makes sense) instead of just measuring DEF consumption (which does not make much sense) before forcing an engine into "limp" mode, and in particular retrofitting a system to measure NOx and reflash the computer (including aftermarket solutions to do so) is no longer considered emissions tampering. This should have been done a long time ago.
    • pc86 2mo ago
      Any argument that includes "they should just" isn't even worth typing or considering as a real policy. They won't just. Nobody will just.
  • hatsix 2mo ago
    Right to repair doesn't change any of that. Farmers were adjusting that screw anyways, that was the entire point. I'm not mad at farmers for doing it, I'm mad at John Deere at cheating the system.
    • mothballed 2mo ago
      It's not John Deere that was doing that, just some Korean companies exploring the opportunity and importing to the US. John Deere is located in the US and too afraid of the whimsical interpretations of regulators to try something like that, I think. There was no "screw" for the commercial John Deere tractors with emissions controls, that I know of, as that was locked down to prevent "repair."
      • javawizard 2mo ago
        Lot of armchair quarterbacking going on, on both sides. I'd love to hear an actual farmer weigh in on this. Anyone in the room care to volunteer?
        • mothballed 2mo ago
          tractorbynet is one of the better forums for info on opinions on tractors by people that use them regularly
        • bumby 2mo ago
          I did talk to a corn/soybean farmer on this recently and they weren’t nearly as concerned as I would have thought. They said they pay JD to maintain their equipment anyway. The equipment is apparently so expensive and sophisticated that people are wrenching on it much themselves (similar to the trend in road vehicles).
    • Manuel_D 2mo ago
      The point is that when the firmware was locked down, it was vastly more difficult to bypass emissions restrictions. I'm not sure what you mean when you say John Deere was cheating the system. Arguably they were taking compliance more strictly before this ruling.
  • q3k 2mo ago
    Doing that is already illegal and should be enforced using appropriate tools. We shouldn't be relying on unrelated technical measures to enforce laws.
  • notamario 2mo ago
    So replacing a part requires DRM but defeating environmental protections is as easy as turning a screw? Surely I can’t be understanding that correctly given your overall position.
  • xgulfie 2mo ago
    Right to repair doesn't mean they'll get the ability to install custom firmware for example, it just means they'll get the ability to flash it with the signed, official firmware. It doesn't mean they can DPF delete, it means they can install a new one if the old one cracks.
  • atoav 2mo ago
    Yes? But if you want to solve that issue locking down the tech is not the solution. The solution is to have an inspector show up unannounced and give you a hefty fine if that screw is set incorrect. So if that is really an issue, apply the correct fix and don't push the blame on environmentalists.
    • bumby 2mo ago
      I think I disagree. I think the administrative overhead makes for additional problems and is certainly imperfect at mitigating the risk. Risk mitigation (where the risk defined here is emissions outside some acceptable threshold) usually follow this hierarchy from most preferrable to least: - remove the hazard (make it impossible for emissions to exceed the limit, even by altering the operation) - install an engineering mitigation (filters, def, altered fuel mapping etc.) - administrative mitigation (training, inspections) - protective equipment (?? make everyone in society wear a mask?) In this framework, a technological solution is preferrable to an administrative one.
  • tancop 2mo ago
    tractor emissions are nothing compared to all the normal cars and planes. the long term solution is scaling up synthetic fuels or solid state batteries but its just not a big deal today. i think everyone outside of the most hardcore greens will agree that consumer rights are more important than making emissions rules that are still in force harder to bypass.
  • yason 2mo ago
    Emission controls are the best scapegoat for Deere and others to lock down systems as tight as possible for profit. They don't care about emissions, the farmers don't care about emissions, the emissions happen on a fscking large field out of nowhere instead of rush hour city traffic, and tractors usually run at high power which makes a cleaner combustion with less soot (but higher nox): all in all, the world doesn't become a better place because of farm equipment DPF/SCR filtering. But emissions are the perfect mandate for manufacturers to make it impossible for the owners to own the equipment.
    • criddell 2mo ago
      Judging by what I've seen on Reddit lately, lots and lots of people have stopped caring about their personal impact on the environment. Why should we set the AC to 80 or be diligent about turning off lights when billionaires are flying in a private jet to go watch a football game and datacenters are popping up like Starbucks? How can anybody tell a farmer they should probably care more about emissions?
      • throwaway27448 2mo ago
        Expecting individuals to care about anything is likely not going to end well. Large issues should be tackled in collectivized, centralized manner if you actually want to make a dent.
      • bumby 2mo ago
        See: The Prisoners Dilemma. In some collective action problems, if everyone acts in their own individual self interest it results in worse outcomes for everyone. In those cases, it requires some central coordination.
      • esarbe 2mo ago
        I find this a very reasonable frame of mind. Systemic issues and failures cannot be fixed or addressed by individual action. They have to be addressed in a systemic way. It's good that people are catching up to this.
  • Cthulhu_ 2mo ago
    Tractors (and farms) should be subject to regular emissions checks anyway, just like cars etc. Both to check for intentional tampering and wear & tear issues causing excess emissions. The party making the change is responsible for the violation. ...which has a neat overlap with e.g. chat control and online age verification.
  • fleroviumna 2mo ago
    [dead]
• Gigachad 2mo ago
  Because they don't ask it like that. It'll be "Woke communists want to confiscate the money of enterprising businesses." Combined with some AI generated video of the right to repair supporters laughing in an evil way or something.
  • toomuchtodo 2mo ago
    "Don't you believe in free markets and capitalism? It's their right to maximize profits." /s
  • userbinator 2mo ago
    The same side can also say "Woke environmentalist communists want to stop you from tuning your vehicles or rolling coal." That will probably get even more support, given what I've seen of the political leanings of farmers and RtR supporters in general.
• GuB-42 2mo ago
  Except it is not the right question in a market economy like ours. The right question is "what is the value (in dollars) of the right for farmers to repair their equipment". If John Deere values it more than farmers, then they will sell tractors that farmers can't repair on their own, hoping to earn more on repairs rather than easier to repair tractors that are more expensive up front. Basic market economy. It only needs to be litigated when there is a threat to the market itself (ex: monopolies) or when there are greater concerns (ex: the environment). Here, it is a little bit of both. That John Deere is in a monopoly position, so a more repairable competitor can't develop (debated), that agriculture is critical (literally life and death) and John Deere has too much power over it, and if the "right to repair" is a fundamental right.
  • ggoo 2mo ago
    If you asked 100 people which question is more important, yours or mine, I don't think I'd get 100, but I'd probably get 90+. IMO, asking the dollar value of our rights isn't the "right" questions to be asking ourselves.
    • sothatsit 2mo ago
      It is not so simple a problem. Should people have the right to do whatever they want with hardware they buy? Yes. But the regulations that would require John Deere to change their practices and designs for repairability are not about your rights, they are about what we require John Deere to provide. And the more you require John Deere to provide, the more costs add up. When designing regulations that we require companies to follow, the costs of those regulations should be considered. For routine repairs it seems very beneficial for farmers to be able to repair things themselves. But there’s a very long tail of problems where at some point the cost will become meaningful, and the benefits might not be that great.
      • AnthonyMouse 2mo ago
        There is an obvious way to do this that doesn't impose high regulatory costs. A simple rule: The customer (and their independent mechanic) has access to anything the company has access to. Now you're not forcing them to write new service documentation, only to not restrict documentation they wrote anyway to their own dealers. You're not forcing them to support third party replacement parts, only preventing them from inhibiting it through software locks etc. You don't have to force them to do anything, all you need is for them to not prevent others from doing certain things. Which is easy, because it's preventing documentation from being copied around or preventing independent third parties from making compatible replacement parts which requires active effort.