[HN Gopher] John Deere to pay $99M in right-to-repair settlement
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John Deere to pay $99M in right-to-repair settlement
Author : CharlesW
Score : 327 points
Date : 2026-04-08 20:46 UTC (14 hours ago)
HTML web link (www.thedrive.com)
TEXT w3m dump (www.thedrive.com)
| verdverm wrote:
| The second paragraph likely answers some of your immediate
| questions
|
| > The settlement also includes an agreement by Deere to provide
| "the digital tools required for the maintenance, diagnosis, and
| repair" of tractors, combines, and other machinery for 10 years.
| That part is crucial, as farmers previously resorted to hacking
| their own equipment's software just to get it up and running
| again. John Deere signed a memorandum of understanding in 2023
| that partially addressed those concerns, providing third parties
| with the technology to diagnose and repair, as long as its
| intellectual property was safeguarded. Monday's settlement seems
| to represent a much stronger (and legally binding) step forward.
| westmeal wrote:
| Yeah but it's only for 10 years...
| verdverm wrote:
| it's not, they have to provide the knowhow to 3rd parties so
| they can carry on indefinitely
| BobbyTables2 wrote:
| 10 years for the buyer or the manufacturer?
|
| So it's back to as before in 10 years?
| verdverm wrote:
| The second to last sentence I copied over talks about after
| 10yrs, basically saying they have to provide the knowhow to
| 3rd party tool makers and repair technicians, and that this
| settlement makes that more certain. (as I read it)
| darth_avocado wrote:
| The stock is up 5% today. What's the catch?
| aucisson_masque wrote:
| The market expected a worst outcome ?
| maest wrote:
| No, all US equities are up after the Iran ceasefire news.
|
| You need to look at Deere stock after taking out the beta to
| the market.
| explodes wrote:
| IANAL but my understanding with settlements is that It removes
| the possibility of the defendant risking a judgement of
| wrongdoing and causing more problems down the road, like having
| to fix their mistakes.
| bluGill wrote:
| The market doesn't care. It is a big deal to some people here,
| but to the vast majority it doesn't change a thing (or doesn't
| seem to) and so the markets don't care.
| tartoran wrote:
| > What's the catch?
|
| 99m is a drop in the bucket. They were probably expecting more.
| jabwd wrote:
| They settled, and paid pennies for being able to continue the
| status quo. Given that the headline is journalistic malpractice
| at best; and you asking this question kinda proves that.
|
| > While the agricultural manufacturing giant pointed out in a
| statement that this is no admission of wrongdoing
|
| Welp, gotta sue again in the future, hopefully lobbied laws in
| place to prevent whatever forced them to settle by then!
| zdragnar wrote:
| The whole point of settling is to end legal action. Admitting
| wrongdoing will be used as evidence against them by others
| who weren't party to the original suit. Any future suits will
| have far higher settlement costs, if plaintiffs are even
| willing to settle, since there's an admission of guilt right
| there.
|
| You can thank the plaintiffs and their lawyers for accepting
| the settlement instead of pursuing a judicial remedy such as
| an injunction or finding of illegal behavior.
| collingreen wrote:
| It is going to be tough to get me to think the plaintiff is
| responsible for John Deere the company continuing to be
| dickheads.
|
| When I hear these kinds of "blame the consumer" apologetics
| it never resonates with me - I'm just not going to get on
| board with some hypothetical natural state where
| corporations are inherently bad like some sort of sick
| animal and it's on consumers to sacrifice and plan with
| care in order to help the rest of society deal with them.
|
| Corporations are just big groups of people. If their
| victims can choose self sacrifice in order to help the
| group then the corporation people could just as easily do
| the same and that feels far more just to me.
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| Anticipating 10.01 years from now, when John Deere sends a new
| over the air update and the situation goes right back to where
| it was, with no one having access to their equipment.
| snapetom wrote:
| There was a MoU between the American Farm Bureau and John Deere
| signed in 2023 that outlined right to repair. This consequently
| already altered Deere's business model with respect to IP and
| right to repair, and gave signals that a settlement was coming.
| In other words, the stock price already accounted for the
| change. Very few things catches stock prices by surprise in the
| long term.
| anitil wrote:
| There is a premium on risk reduction. I believe this is one of
| the reasons why companies like to incorporate in Delaware as
| the courts there are notoriously fast (I'm going off my memory
| of a Planet Money episode so could be wrong here).
| chasil wrote:
| The complete crack of Deere's firmware in 2022 must have had some
| impact on this.
|
| https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/16/john_deere_doom/
|
| Edit: 'Sick Codes confirmed that he believes John Deere failed to
| comply with its GPL obligations. "I'd love for them to come
| forward and explain how they are in compliance," he said.'
| bri3d wrote:
| I wouldn't really call that a "complete crack" (although it IS
| cool). There's an _awful_ lot more firmware in a car or tractor
| than the display unit, and arguably it's one of the less
| important modules in most architectures. Cracked versions of
| Deere Service Advisor are much more meaningful to the kinds of
| repairs farmers perform than firmware exploits are.
| SilverElfin wrote:
| Seems like a small price for a big company. Shouldn't there be
| some higher punitive fine for even trying this tactic? It's
| basically zero cost for companies to be abusive.
| adityamwagh wrote:
| Yes there should be. But there won't be until US stops lobbying
| and American public elects lawmakers that work for people
| instead of their own pockets.
| nalekberov wrote:
| Unfortunately most people has a price in this world. Those
| who can't be bought are just so rare.
| user3939382 wrote:
| The disgusting part is it's not even that much money. $20k
| here, $50k there gets you a lot of political leverage.
| mayama wrote:
| And people that are likely to not be bought wouldn't enter
| politics in most cases. To enter and succeed in politics
| needs ambition and skillset that is diametrically opposite
| to a honest person.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| no the settlements include many other conditions, but I agree
| the financial penalties should be larger
| causality0 wrote:
| One of the most user-hostile companies on earth. My John Deere
| lawnmower came with a fuel gauge that runs off a CR2032 that's
| embedded in epoxy. The battery runs out of charge in about six
| months and the gauge stops working. If you saw the gauge open and
| replace the battery it doesn't start working again. If you
| disconnect the gauge the lawnmower won't start. Replacement
| gauges are $60.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| That's wild.They had to go out of their way to not wire it to
| the 12V.
| M95D wrote:
| They had to go out of their way to make it _not_ work after
| you replace the battery with a good one.
| dmos62 wrote:
| Hot take: it takes mental gymnastics to think that planned
| obsolescence is not fraud.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Is there a bright line between cost reduction and planned
| obsolescence?
|
| Obviously a small unreplaceable battery is not a good example
| for that discussion.
| jojobas wrote:
| Going out of your way to make sure the gauge doesn't work
| after the battery is replaced surely is.
| maxerickson wrote:
| I wonder if the gauge is just a horrible design that uses
| the battery to keep some memory alive.
|
| Microcontrollers with persistent memory are not
| expensive, so something like that would just be horrible
| design, not something you could even try to justify as a
| cost reduction.
| hgomersall wrote:
| I had an interesting situation where we had failure of a
| Thule bike trailer wheel and could see where the
| connection-to-the-trailer design had changed from an
| earlier version (from the company that Thule bought). The
| wheel functioned the same, but you could see a clear
| difference which fully explained the failure. I expect it
| was a cost optimisation, and we only encountered the
| failure because we used it very heavily.
|
| Edit: they also failed to honour their warranty
| commitments, but that was secondary.
| moring wrote:
| I think there is: It is the line between "not spending
| extra money to make sure it works" and "spending extra
| money to make sure it won't work".
|
| There is a related problem with warranty: an inferior
| third-party replacement part may cause damage to higher-
| quality original parts. There is a line here between
| "making sure you don't have to deal with follow-up damage
| caused by inferior parts" and "preventing the use of
| inferior parts". This is a bit more blurry because most
| cases won't be clear-cut, and dealing with them will be a
| burden on the original manufacturer.
|
| I think it is important that we reward the nice players as
| much as we punish the bad ones. A blanket "all companies
| bad" just means that no company has an incentive to be
| anything less than bad.
| hatthew wrote:
| Sure, if it's truly planned. I think the tricky part tends to
| be that it's hard to distinguish between "planned
| obsolescence" and "incidental obsolescence".
| AuthAuth wrote:
| Depends how its planned. If its planned to fail but designed
| in a way thats cheap and easy to replace its ok. Because
| sometimes it can be the case that to much is spent over
| engineering a high use part when would be more practical to
| let it break and replace it every 2 years or so.
| miki123211 wrote:
| I personally like to call it "forced obsolescence."
|
| Forced obsolescence is when the consumer always buys the
| cheapest product that checks their boxes, regardless of build
| quality. This forces you to either use cheap parts that you
| know will break, or leave the market entirely. The consumer
| may bitch at "planned obsolescence", but when push comes to
| shove and they're looking for what their next <thing> is
| going to be, they only look at the price and features, not
| quality and longevity.
|
| We should be re-framing this in consumer's minds, and list
| "price divided by warranty" as an important dimension to
| evaluate a product on.
| themafia wrote:
| It's consumer fraud. It's shareholder fraud. It's
| environmental fraud.
|
| Products like this simply shouldn't be allowed on the market.
| As if we need to destroy the planet so my Mother can enjoy
| looking at her 401k balance in the morning.
| userbinator wrote:
| Chances are you might find a compatible replacement from China
| on Ali and the other usual sites for a fraction of the price.
| b112 wrote:
| This is where small claims court can have a HUGE impact.
|
| Where I live, in small claims:
|
| * Lawyers are not allowed
|
| * There is no forced discovery. Sue John Deere, and they cannot
| ask for endless documents
|
| * There is no way to assign costs on loss. If you lose, you
| never pay costs for the person you sued (which makes sense --
| no lawyers)
|
| * If you don't understand something, typically the judge will
| act as a mediator and explain it to you.
|
| Yet meanwhile, suing in small claims will typically result in a
| big company _using lawyers_ , who will try to pretend the above
| is not true. They will also rack up large costs for the
| company. In the end, sometimes a lawyer will appear in small
| claims court _beside a company employee_. However the company
| employee will do the talking.
|
| My cost to file is $100. My cost to serve (via courier with
| tracking + sig) was $10. The company I went after, a fortune
| 500 company, I suspect spent >$50k on lawyers. While small to
| the company, it is truly a way to level the playing field.
|
| What I find amusing here is, you could sue for a replacement
| unit. Explain what you found. Where I am, the max resolution is
| $30k, so you could easily get a refund for the tractor. Citing
| this issue while describing all of this, could result in two
| outcomes.
|
| 1) Deere employee claims (in their defense) that a batch of
| units were defective. They then deliver a fixed unit to you.
| While not perfect, it would be amusing, because they'll have
| just spent $50k in paying lawyers, along with making a proper
| unit.
|
| 2) You just claim that the tractor is defective, you can't sell
| it as it is, except maybe for parts. And you're not sure most
| of them are usable (weird electronics), and even cite that
| Deere stuff apparently is designed to break without authorized
| repairs. So how can you in good faith, even try to sell it to
| anyone??
|
| So you ask for your time, costs, and full replacement costs
| with another brand.
|
| Adding your wage/hr is somewhat typical here, for calls,
| research, sawing it open, all of it.
|
| --
|
| Anyhow.
|
| If #1 is chosen and it breaks again, then you can repeat the
| whole fun process.
|
| And I do mean it is fun.
|
| $100 + I filled out a 2 page form, and then fedexed it to them.
| Their lawyers kept pestering me, to which I simply said "No"
| and "I don't need to give you anything, there's no forced
| discovery". This too was very satisfying, when I kept in mind
| how each call to me cost the company probably about $1k.
|
| I mean, literally I'm sure each 5 minute call was around that
| ballpark. It was sheer joy. (Just don't discuss any aspect of
| the case in these calls.)
|
| Then there was a pre-trail meeting where I, the company rep,
| and a retired judge sat. I was told that "nothing said here can
| ever be used in court", which made it more fun. The system's
| attempt to resolve before trial. That too was fun, for I got to
| finally tell the company, over and over, how wrong they were.
|
| Anyhow.
|
| It's a fun process.
| GCUMstlyHarmls wrote:
| >Then there was a pre-trail meeting where I, the company rep,
| and a retired judge sat.
|
| This is them trying to intimidate you right? Or settle pre-
| court at least? Not part of the actual process where some
| retired judge always mediates before trial? It reads as
| gross.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| Many small claims court procedures, at least outside the
| US, include mandatory mediation that would fit this
| description, and there is nothing gross about it.
|
| Given that a "retired judge" was present, I assume it was
| such a mediation meeting (i.e. the retired judge was most
| likely a neutral, court appointed mediator, whose job is
| basically to tell both sides to please come to an
| agreement, and potentially tell one side to pull their head
| out of their ass and stop being idiots before the court has
| to tell them that they are being idiots).
| b112 wrote:
| Yes, exactly.
| pjjpo wrote:
| Sounds like a fun anecdote and not doubting it at all. So
| just wondering how that max comes into play
|
| > Explain what you found. Where I am, the max resolution is
| $30k, so you could easily get a refund for the tractor.
|
| While I haven't bought a tractor before from some searching
| and impression they seem much higher. If fair market value is
| that low, I can see how 1) works but if for 2 it caps out at
| $30K, it doesn't seem like it would get you a full
| replacement with another brand.
|
| The loss to John Deere is funny but isn't it also a loss to
| the customer, who would hurt more from the lost tractor?
| M95D wrote:
| In EU, a product such as this would have a 2 year minimum
| warranty. How long was yours?
| pdpi wrote:
| They might be able to work around that by arguing it's a
| consumable, so not a warranty issue.
| M95D wrote:
| Fuel is a consumable, and fuel gauge is also a consumable?
| You have lots of terrible judges if anyone could seriously
| consider _that_ argument.
| pdpi wrote:
| Oh the argument would never be phrased that way. Rather,
| you start from the completely uncontroversial point that
| a CR2032 battery is a consumable, come up with some
| reason why you can't use a bare cell like that and need
| some sort of assembly around it, and incrementally
| justify adding more functionality into that assembly.
|
| Also, remember that you don't need to prove that the
| design is sensible, only that it isn't deliberately
| malicious.
| gambiting wrote:
| Again, it's a misconception(and I'm from the EU). EU law
| guarantees that for 2 years from purchase(it's actually 6 on
| most items) the seller has to fix any issues that arise from
| _manufacturing faults_. In the first 6 months of ownership,
| any fault is automatically presumed to be a manufacturing
| fault, after 6 months the buyer has to prove that it is. That
| is not the same as a warranty, if your laptop randomly stops
| working 2 years in you don 't automatically get a right to
| have it repaired _unless_ you can prove it failed because of
| a manufacturing defect(which as you can imagine, is actually
| quite hard to prove).
|
| A lot of manufacturers have alligned their warranties to be 2
| years long in the EU because they don't want to deal with the
| above, but it's completely 100% legal to offer a 1 year or 6
| months warranty in the EU on any item. Your rights with
| regards to seller's responsibility are not affected by it.
| mhitza wrote:
| > EU law also stipulates that you must give the consumer a
| _minimum 2-year guarantee (legal guarantee)_ as a
| protection against faulty goods, or goods that don 't look
| or work as advertised. In some countries national law may
| require you to provide longer guarantees.
|
| https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/dealing-with-
| customers...
|
| Unless there is something I'm missing on consumer
| protection legislation. I've seen in the past regional
| sellers that claimed that their provide a shorter
| guarantee. They sold their products on a marketplace
| platform, and once I reported them they changed their
| claims.
| shevy-java wrote:
| Good! Wonder if Louis Rossmann already mentioned that.
| bearjaws wrote:
| Needs another zero, likely made 9 figures in revenue from this
| scheme.
| mothballed wrote:
| I bought a ~completely mechanical tractor without ECU right under
| the 25hp cutoff that requires computer and emissions controls to
| get around this bullshit. The adding of DPF and/or SCR to
| agricultural diesels gave vendors cover to fuck the customer
| using the excuse of preventing emissions tampering.
| skeptrune wrote:
| this is awesome. beyond happy to see it
| pnw wrote:
| Up to one third of that $99m goes to attorneys. Named plaintiffs
| get $25k each and class members get what's left over, which could
| be anything from $50 to $5k according to ChatGPT.
|
| I wonder if they'll throw in free credit monitoring with that?
| Robdel12 wrote:
| Woah, childs play money for the amount of pain, lock in, and
| money they've cost farmers.
| TylerE wrote:
| Literally. It's less than a week of profit for JD. Not _income_
| , _profit_.
| mschild wrote:
| Fines like these are simply considered Cost of Doing Business.
| Part of the reason why I love the GDPR fine structure so much
| (percentage base).
|
| It has to hurt.
| datahack wrote:
| This is woefully inadequate as a remedy. The dollar amount is
| minuscule and the remedy time limited. Seems like they just got a
| license to continue business as usual.
| amelius wrote:
| Isn't there some kind of three-strikes approach which judges
| can use against repeat offenders?
| genxy wrote:
| 10 years is just about when things start needing a whole lot of
| attention. Frankly no one should buy something like this unless
| a whole shelf of repair manuals is available, along with spare
| parts.
| itbeho wrote:
| I live in a wine region in central Calif where everyone has a
| tractor. We bought a Kubota, enjoy using it and get a lot of work
| done with it. We have a neighbor that bought a new John Deere and
| for about a 3 month period we endured nothing but abuse from him
| because we didn't buy "American". Then his problems started...
| lifty wrote:
| Did he empathize with you after or he remained bitter?
| brikym wrote:
| I'm guessing once he understood his tractor is a lemon he
| asked his neighbor for a taste of his sweet orange one.
| dansmith1919 wrote:
| If you make a very rough estimate of the emotional maturity
| of a person that abuses a neighbor for not "buying American",
| I think the answer become reasonably clear
| koolba wrote:
| Depends on which specific model as about half of them are made
| in the USA: https://www.kubota-kma.com/about/
| silexia wrote:
| Farmer here. We only run equipment made before 2000 and all of
| our tractors are from the 1980s. We badly need right to repair.
| shiroiuma wrote:
| You should check out Kubota stuff.
| 9rx wrote:
| I considered one for my last tractor purchase. The
| depreciation on them is hard to square. Units are selling or
| 1/3 of the original price with only a few hundred hours on
| them.
| mschild wrote:
| Why not purchase used then? 66% discount for a mint
| condition sounds like a steal.
| 9rx wrote:
| That is what brought some interest, but at the same time
| there are no steals in farming. Although in the end it
| was largely technical. The M7 wasn't enough frame for my
| needs, but I didn't really need the HP of the M8 (which
| is actually a Versatile anyway). Other manufacturers
| offer models that more closely align with my
| requirements.
| written-beyond wrote:
| Whenever I read John Deere my brain somehow adds Louis Rossman in
| there too.
| fiftyacorn wrote:
| Let me check who the second largest shareholder is - ah its bill
| gates
| Dead_Lemon wrote:
| It surprised me that farmers aren't just ditching John Deere for
| alternatives that respect them. Visiting family on their farm in
| the early 2000's, they had been selling off their John Deere
| tractors and replacing them with Massey Ferguson, because they
| were annoyed with the poor servicing and parts delivery they had
| with their local shop/dealership. Way before this right to repair
| stuff happened.
| halapro wrote:
| I think a lot of them just are not aware of the issues until
| they dropped hundreds of thousands of dollars and used the
| tractors for years
| Barbing wrote:
| Could that be true over the past decade that we've seen this
| in the headlines? Wouldn't there be plenty of bellyaching at
| the feed store?
|
| Maybe they're really reliable and people are just finding out
| now...
| raxxorraxor wrote:
| I don't think other modern tractors behave differently to be
| honest. Deere probably cost a premium in comparison, but I
| think many farmers lease their work devices today anyway.
|
| But yes, if they would own it, a right to repair would be very
| welcomed...
|
| If you see a modern tractor on the streets next to a Ferrari,
| the tractor is probably the more luxurious and expensive
| vehicle.
| cjrp wrote:
| Any tariffs on imported tractors? My gut says yes
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