{"id":51642,"date":"2026-04-19T10:43:27","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T14:43:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=51642"},"modified":"2026-09-14T09:58:05","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T13:58:05","slug":"john-deere-right-to-repair-settlement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/19\/john-deere-right-to-repair-settlement\/","title":{"rendered":"John Deere Right-to-Repair Settlement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thedrive.com\/news\/john-deere-to-pay-99-million-in-monumental-right-to-repair-settlement\">Caleb Jacobs<\/a> (via <a href=\"https:\/\/news.ycombinator.com\/item?id=47696035\">Hacker<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/news.ycombinator.com\/item?id=19900022\">News<\/a>):<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/www.thedrive.com\/news\/john-deere-to-pay-99-million-in-monumental-right-to-repair-settlement\">\n<p>While the agricultural manufacturing giant pointed out in a statement that this is no admission of wrongdoing, it agreed to pay $99 million into a fund for farms and individuals who participated in a class action lawsuit. Specifically, that money is available to those involved who paid John Deere&rsquo;s authorized dealers for large equipment repairs from January 2018<em>.<\/em> This means that plaintiffs will recover somewhere between 26% and 53% of overcharge damages, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.agri-pulse.com\/ext\/resources\/pdfs\/gov.uscourts.ilnd.415798.333.1.pdf\">one of the court documents<\/a>&mdash;far beyond the typical amount, which lands between 5% and 15%.<\/p>\n<p>The settlement also includes an agreement by Deere to provide &ldquo;the digital tools &#x200B;required for the maintenance, diagnosis, and repair&rdquo; of tractors, combines, and other machinery for 10 years. That part is crucial, as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thedrive.com\/news\/39158\/farmers-are-having-to-hack-their-own-tractors-just-to-make-repairs\">farmers previously resorted to hacking their own equipment&rsquo;s software<\/a> just to get it up and running again.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Previously:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2025\/04\/16\/right-to-repair-legislation-in-50-states\/\">Right to Repair Legislation in 50 States<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2021\/11\/17\/apple-self-service-repair\/\">Apple Self Service Repair<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p id=\"john-deere-right-to-repair-settlement-update-2026-07-09\">Update (<a href=\"#john-deere-right-to-repair-settlement-update-2026-07-09\">2026-07-09<\/a>): <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/john-deere-right-to-repair-agriculture-equipment-cb7514ffedb95c130a976af661f2bc02\">Sarah Raza<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/news.ycombinator.com\/item?id=48838876\">Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/john-deere-right-to-repair-agriculture-equipment-cb7514ffedb95c130a976af661f2bc02\">\n<p>The Federal Trade Commission and attorneys general from several states secured a right-to-repair settlement Wednesday with <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/john-deere-repair-lawsuit-settlement-595d4b089689cd94418991326275b68d\">agriculture equipment giant Deere &amp; Co<\/a>. &mdash; commonly known as John Deere &mdash; that requires the company to let farmers and independent shops fix their own equipment.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p id=\"john-deere-right-to-repair-settlement-update-2026-09-14\">Update (<a href=\"#john-deere-right-to-repair-settlement-update-2026-09-14\">2026-09-14<\/a>): <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/i-fixed-a-tractor-john-deere-self-repair-service\/\">Boone Ashworth<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/news.ycombinator.com\/item?id=49658672\">Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/i-fixed-a-tractor-john-deere-self-repair-service\/\">\n<p>Pro Service lets owners connect Deere&rsquo;s software to their equipment via Wi-Fi or cable. Based on the serial number of the machine, the software can be used to find information from manuals and John Deere&rsquo;s broader data services to diagnose any maintenance the machine needs.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>The thing John Deere does seem to struggle with is enticing people to use its Pro Service, or even making its customers aware of it. (That&rsquo;s the reason I&rsquo;m here at this demo.) A year on, John Deere says its service has about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.deere.com\/en-us\/john-deere-news\/one-year-later\">a thousand daily users<\/a>&mdash;a relatively small number, given that there are somewhere around <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ers.usda.gov\/data-products\/chart-gallery\/58268\">1.8 million farms<\/a> in the US.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>If a user faces a novel problem with how a machine works, it would still take time for that issue to get back to John Deere, which would verify it, then issue a PIP in Pro Service. In the meantime, the person dealing with the broken tractor won&rsquo;t have the needed information to figure out exactly what is going on. Ideally, many of them would like to be able to troubleshoot the problem themselves, without having to use the company&rsquo;s proprietary software.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>It sounds like a subscription service to access limited documentation.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Caleb Jacobs (via Hacker News): While the agricultural manufacturing giant pointed out in a statement that this is no admission of wrongdoing, it agreed to pay $99 million into a fund for farms and individuals who participated in a class action lawsuit. Specifically, that money is available to those involved who paid John Deere&rsquo;s authorized [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2026-04-19T14:43:30Z","apple_news_api_id":"cb30caa2-4ef8-482e-b06a-cf4e512c9aeb","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2026-09-14T13:58:09Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAg==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AyzDKok74SC6was9OUSya6w","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[182,1156,41,209,1860],"class_list":["post-51642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-drm","tag-federal-trade-commission-ftc","tag-lawsuit","tag-legal","tag-unauthorized-repair"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51642"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53177,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51642\/revisions\/53177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}