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States and FTC file lawsuit against John Deere for limiting repair access

Lawsuit alleges farmers are stymied in efforts to repair their own equipment or turn to local, independent repair providers, a potential roadmap for the automotive aftermarket’s Right to Repair efforts

The seemingly ever-elusive but always promising Right to Repair federal legislation — despite bipartisan support in Congress — is akin to Peanuts’ Lucy pulling back on Charlie Brown’s football kick. We just never quite get there. There is, however, a growing groundswell of support for Right to Repair legislation in other industries (consumer electronics, appliances, etc.), which is hopeful.

Rob Merwin is publisher and editor of Aftermarket Matters

A couple years back, I wrote a column, “Don’t let Right to Repair be put out to pasture,” where the American Farm Bureau Federation had announced it reached an agreement with John Deere that promised independent repair shops and farmers the ability to service the manufacturer’s equipment.

Turns out, John Deere was blowing smoke and the Federation should’ve known better. They were duped — it was just a stall tactic. Well, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the attorney generals of Minnesota and Illinois are now playing hardball.

On Wednesday, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, in partnership with the FTC and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, filed a lawsuit against Deere, arguing the agricultural equipment manufacturer’s use of unfair practices has driven up equipment repair costs for farmers while also depriving farmers of the ability to make timely repairs on critical farming equipment, including tractors.

In their lawsuit, Raoul and the coalition allege that for decades, Deere’s unlawful practices have limited the ability of farmers and independent repair providers to repair Deere equipment, forcing farmers to instead rely on Deere’s network of authorized dealers for necessary repairs. According to the Illinois Attorney General office in a statement, this unfair steering practice has boosted Deere’s multibillion-dollar profits on agricultural equipment and parts, allowing the company to expand its repair parts business while burdening farmers with higher repair costs.

That sounds suspiciously similar to what Aaron Lowe, who at the time I spoke with him in 2022 was senior vice president of Regulatory and Government Affairs for the Auto Care Association, told me: “[Automakers want] to decide which independents are repairing the vehicles — and what parts they’re using. They make a lot of their money by selling parts, and if they control the repair market — who gets the information — then they can control the entire aftermarket supply chain from a parts perspective. That’s their end game.

“The entire aftermarket has a huge stake in this.”

In their lawsuit, Raoul and the coalition seek to stop Deere’s anticompetitive conduct by ordering, among other remedies, that Deere make available to owners of Deere’s large tractors and combines, as well as independent repair providers, access to its fully functional Service ADVISOR repair tool and any other repair resources available to authorized dealers. Likewise, the independent aftermarket seeks OEM repair data to level the playing field with dealership service and repair centers.

Historically, farmers have sought to repair their own equipment or relied on local, independent repair providers, which have offered various advantages over authorized Deere dealers, including lower costs, better reliability and faster repair times. Sound familiar? Yet with the increasing computerization of Deere’s equipment over the past few decades, farmers must now rely on Deere’s software repair tool, which Deere makes available only to its authorized dealers.

Despite increasing public pressure — including state legislative action — to give farmers the right to repair their own equipment, both states maintain that Deere continues to unlawfully withhold a fully functional repair tool from equipment owners. Deere’s restrictions deprive farmers of the use of their own repair labor, deny them access to their preferred repair service providers, prevent them from more reliably planting, spraying, or harvesting crops on a schedule that would allow them to maximize yield, and force them to spend more on repair and parts.

In March 2023, Raoul led a bipartisan coalition of 27 attorneys general in calling upon Congress to protect farmers and other consumers by passing expansive Right to Repair legislation targeted at automobiles, agriculture equipment and digital electronic equipment.

They tried to play nice. Hopefully, Illinois and Minnesota can kick their lawsuit through the uprights and score one for us all.

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