Comment by justonceokay
10 hours ago
> Those buying new don't care about repairs.
Yes because thy live in the John Deere future. This was not always the case, surely. You used to be able to take high school classes to learn how to fix a combustion engine, even a new one!
Keep in mind that tractors are also getting massive.
The economics of row-crop agriculture is "you gotta farm more land". That means spending as much time in the field as you can with as big a machine as you can.
So not only is time you spend fixing your tractor yourself time you're not spending on your primary job, it's also working on a machine that's just monstrously huge. Delegating that work to a specialist with specialized tools is a very reasonable way to live.
The issue is that the specialized employees is not someone you hire on payroll who has access to tools you purchase. They must be a John Deere employee who comes from out of state and costs you $$$$$$ to calibrate a sensor that could just be a simple menu button and a 20 second wait
JD techs are all over the Midwest. No one is coming from out of state to work on your combine.
I mean, sure, right to repair and all that, but to be clear, unless you have like 50+ tractors to maintain, it's not going to make economic sense to have a full time employee to repair them. You still want to call out, you just want the option of calling someone local with more competitive rates and a faster response time.
Exactly! The old image of a guy on a Deere 4020 pulling an eight row implement is just unsustainable in today's agricultural system. Whether that system is sustainable is a different question.
Incidentally, the 4020 is like the tractor to me.
One of these days I'm going to buy one to restore, the way other men but the cars of their youth.
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You still can. My 26-year-old took automotive shop when he was a Junior in HS. Of course, we live in a rural school district...