re: Where do you stand on this issue Re John Deere shop tool availability?

Any notion of mentioning anything that is sold at Home Depot (lawn mowers) is stupid. Also, drawing a parallel to a passenger vehicle is dumb. The equipment where this became an issue is in heavy equipment. Ag, forestry, excavating, etc.

Deere has misinterpreted dealer loyalty for brand loyalty. That is the biggest factor in driving farmers to other brands. Deere has consolidated service to larger dealerships and it has become a pain. My brother in law, a loyal Deere guy, has sworn them off because of this. A friend and neighbor who is self employed doing custom harvesting has shifted almost entirely away from Deere and has almost completely gone to Fendt and Massey. Combines, tractors, etc. Fed up with Deere’s crap he opted to dump his four combines from a dealer 10 minutes away and went with a Fendt/Massey dealer 45 minutes away.

In the compact and subcompact market Deere lacks quality. Kubota has their own engines. AGCO (Massey) uses Iseki engines. Iseki has been an AGCO brand since the early 90’s. Deere has used Yanmar engines and since pieces are needed to mate a Yanmar engine with a Deere drivetrain it leaves weaknesses. Other compacts and subcompacts are rebranded. New Holland for awhile was a rebranded LS.

15 minutes away there’s a Deere dealer and a Massey dealer. The Massey dealer is running circles around the Deere dealer. You are buying the dealership more so than you are buying a color of tractor. The Deere dealerships have gone to crap.

Deere has brand recognition but they got complacent with it. The lawnmower I bought a few years ago has an identical engine as a Deere. Same specs as a similar Deere. Mine was quite a bit cheaper because green paint costs more than yellow paint. Yet when I’ve had to, I can find replacement parts (deck spindles, switches, etc.) a hell of a lot cheaper than if it was green.

There are tons and tons of farms where I’m at and all over this state of Wisconsin. Each year for the past decade there’s less and less green iron and what you do see sticking around are more tractors from the late 90’s and earlier. The right to repair issue is a contributing factor but it’s not the only thing that Deere has done to drive customers away.