(Radio Iowa) – John Deere recently reached a settlement of a 99 million-dollar lawsuit accusing the company of monopolizing its repair services, but one independent repair technician says it hasn’t changed anything. Chad Varner tells K-C-R-G T-V that newer farm equipment is a double-edged sword as new technology makes farming easier and more efficient, but it’s difficult and costly to fix it.
“The new John Deere equipment you are married to the dealership and the op center you are kinda held hostage,” Varner says. Varner says any equipment repair involving software is next to impossible for a farmer or technician like him to do without going through John Deere. “They have basically been backed into a corner to where they have to call the dealership to send somebody out to come fix it, and in the busy time of year it might be two days before someone gets here,” Varner says.
Varner was a John Deere repairman for seven years before opening his independent business. He tells K-C-R-G T-V if a farmer’s equipment stops working at the wrong time then they are forced to wait on the dealership to come out because the independent repair shops can’t fix the deer equipment. “Mother nature gives the farmers so many days to put a crop in the ground and so many days to take the crop out,” Varner says.
If a farmer does want to do repairs themselves involving software, they have to pay 195 dollars per machine to access the software, not including repair tools. An independent shop like Varner’s would need to buy a six-thousand dollar license each year. Varner is happy with the outcome of the 99 million-dollar settlement symbolically, but he says it won’t represent real change. The Federal Trade Commission is also suing John Deere, accusing the company of using “unlawful practices have limited the ability of farmers and independent repair providers to repair Deere equipment.”
