You need to look at Deere stock after taking out the beta to the market.
99m is a drop in the bucket. They were probably expecting more.
> 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!
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.
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.
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.'
Obviously a small unreplaceable battery is not a good example for that discussion.
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.
Edit: they also failed to honour their warranty commitments, but that was secondary.
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.
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.
So, I buy the cheapest thing that ticks the other boxes. Not because I'm inherently cheap, but because I have no trust in the market. There's no way for me to know if I'd be paying extra for luxury features, brand premium, or reliability. Yes, I try to research things I buy, and avoid red-flags, but there's only so much you can learn that way, and most people don't have neither the experience, nor the know-how, nor the time to research everything properly to high exhaustion.
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.
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.
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.
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).
> 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?
Also, remember that you don't need to prove that the design is sensible, only that it isn't deliberately malicious.
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.
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.
>> I've seen in the past regional sellers that claimed that their provide a shorter guarantee.
The sellers have to provide that guarantee against manufacturing defects for a minimum of 2 years, correct. Manufacturers can provide any length they like as they aren't the seller(in some cases and with some products they are legally bound as well, but it's not for everything - cars for instance have their own set of rules which bind the manufacturer not just the seller).
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32...
> In order for goods to be in conformity, they should possess the durability which is normal for goods of the same type and which the consumer can reasonably expect given the nature of the specific goods, including the possible need for reasonable maintenance of the goods, such as the regular inspection or changing of filters in a car
> Given that when implementing Directive 1999/44/EC, a large majority of Member States have provided for a period of two years, and in practice that period is considered reasonable by market participants, that period should be maintained.
> For a period of one year, or for a period of two years if Member States choose to apply a two-year period, the consumer should only need to prove that the good is not in conformity, without also needing to prove that the lack of conformity actually existed at the relevant time for establishing conformity
I wonder if they'll throw in free credit monitoring with that?
It has to hurt.
That might on the surface sound contradictory with high depreciation as that means someone has to pay for an expensive new machine. But they are not really at odds with each other when you think about it.
Maybe they're really reliable and people are just finding out now...
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.
I have surfed (I used to research stuff for various people) many tractor forums over the years but don't really recall too many details, but ever after a number of years, one of the things that stuck in my mind was one USoA farmer's account of the over the top gouging practices that JD was running with. Basically the newish JD was serviced by a third party mechanic, new parts installed correctly and verified ... but it would not run until they paid $$$$ for a JD tech to drive out to their location, plug in their simple special tool to unlock the system so the tractor could start and get to work.
This means only John Deere's authorized contractors, which is going to be pretty costly.
verdverm•1d ago
> 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•1d ago
verdverm•1d ago
BobbyTables2•1d ago
So it’s back to as before in 10 years?
verdverm•1d ago