Farmers jailbreaking John Deere tractors to repair them - video

[Frank S]

Well I don't know anything about how the farmers are getting on with hot wired programing on their JD equipment but I do know of a guy in this county who sold his less than 2 year old cotton picker for less than he owed on it just to get out from under the constant hassles of having to call out a Tech they don't even call the repairmen any more then had his 2 older pickers refurbished says 2 of them together cost less to run than the 1 new one due to the amount of down time it was costing him.

[MeJasonT]

Under this current economic global uncertanty and Trumps desire to put America first, you would think that JD's attitude would be starting to hurt them by now.
Am i correct in thinking its only JD doing it. I have not heard anything similar from the likes of Case International or New Holland Ford.

[Frank S]

Under this current economic global uncertanty and Trumps desire to put America first, you would think that JD's attitude would be starting to hurt them by now.
Am i correct in thinking its only JD doing it. I have not heard anything similar from the likes of Case International or New Holland Ford.

The reason why JD is more in your face than the others is JD has pretty much garnered the market with such a wide diverse equipment lineup pretty much like Caterpillar used to think they were the top dog in the construction and mining industries. But actually every manufacture is having their own issues with the tier4 compliant garbage laws.
Things like simple water pumps only have to sit there and pump water to or from one place to another have to be in constant connection with the interweb to tell it how to preform if for some reason the connection goes down the machine becomes self aware and goes into limp mode like trucks on the highway missing a regen cycle or catching fire and burning the driver alive while going down the highway.
I have a friend in Mn. who is one of the owners of Olson farms they buy their 750,000.00 combines from Sweden and have a fleet of them these machines may get used only 3 months a year the rest of the time they are housed in hanger sized barns. during the off season they have their equipment completely gone over from end to end top to bottom to try and insure there will be no break downs during harvest time.
These mammoth mega farms like his can afford to do things like that but smaller farms by comparison like my cousins who own the Mathes family farms in Co. who farm maybe only10,000 acres are finding that it can be cheaper on them to hire most of their tillage and harvesting done by being part of co-ops all of the farmer's equipment becomes leased out to the roving tillage & harvesting managers. People like a neighbor of mine who farm 1000 to 3000 acres don't have the means to do those things like the larger farmers do and certainly nothing like the mega farms can do and guys way down the ladder in the 100 to 500 acre range or smaller are much better off buying older equipment even though their repairs and replacement part costs can at times be devastating to their bottom line.
One day all equipment will probably be much like the fictional SKYNET in the terminator movies all because of the ever increasing restrictions of environmental concerns. Once that happens it will be a short step to total control over the population of the world just flip a switch or upload a code and billions will starve in a year.
But that is just my opinion

[greyhoundollie]

Every family farmer out there knows that when the tractor, combine, picker etc breaks down it is ALWAYS in the furthest place in the field, usually across a gully or some other condition that makes taking care of the problem extra hard. Us folks who use older equipment are a little bit blessed with the fact that, our old tractor, combine etc, usually is able to limp out of the field or at least to a place where it is more accessible to make a repair.

When the modern million dollar equipment wont run, it wont run even a little bit. And worse it can't be repaired where it sits because it needs the computers reprogrammed in town. The field technician who shows up to assess the problem doesn't want to walk across the muddy field and get his $1,200 cowboy boots dirty. His first step is telephone to start scheduling large equipment to pick up/pull/carry your tractor out of the field and to the city for repair. Before he has hung up his cell phone he has already spent several thousand dollars of your money.

[greyhoundollie]

Well said Charles

[jdurand]

I designed some of the equipment for smart motors, but it was only for diagnosis (short trip from there to build in). You would connect an accelerometer and thermocouple to a motor and then with your phone you would connect with the service center. The tech there would have you change speeds while looking at the live results. He could then tell you if the bearings were bad, good for another month, or all is well.

A certain famous electric car company based near here was using some of the gear I designed, the last I heard.

[Jon]

I'm hearing that instead of having to purchase a new tractor with proprietary software, people are reverting to much older technology.

Fullsize image: https://diqn32j8nouaz.cloudfront.net...e_fullsize.jpg

[IAMSatisfied]

I'm hearing that instead of having to purchase a new tractor with proprietary software, people are reverting to much older technology.

Fullsize image: https://diqn32j8nouaz.cloudfront.net...e_fullsize.jpg

Too funny!

Is that the Lone Ranger's wife in the background?

[marksbug]

if they made it out of sheep the farmer would never stop screwing and tinkering with it .

[MeJasonT]

marksbug - oh the old ones are the best