Tractor manufacturers promised right-to-repair tools years ago. Advocates say it hasn’t happened
. In the fall of 2018, a group of farm equipment manufacturers, including John Deere, made a public commitment to provide farmers with diagnostic tools and repair guides that would enable them to fix their own tractors. The move came in response to growing public pressure from customers, anti-monopoly advocates, and lawmakers who supported right-to-repair legislation, which would have mandated that companies do away with software that can lock farmers out of their own equipment. These lockouts force farmers to turn to authorized dealers for costly service instead of resolving issues themselves. Anyway, guess what? Equipment manufacturers haven’t made good on their commitment, say right-to-repair groups. One advocate reached out to dealers, posing as a client, only to be told repeatedly that no diagnostic software was available. Read the story from Vice’s Motherboard.
