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Digital Rights/Restrictions Management (DRM) technologies affecting new tractors are behind the continuing rise in popularity of the models. Particularly in the midwest, farmers are finding that 40-year-old tractors do the job with less trouble and expense.
Tractors manufactured in the late 1970s and 1980s are some of the hottest items in farm auctions across the Midwest these days — and it's not because they're antiques.
Cost-conscious farmers are looking for bargains, and tractors from that era are well-built and totally functional, and aren't as complicated or expensive to repair as more recent models that run on sophisticated software.
"It's a trend that's been building. It's been interesting in the last couple years, which have been difficult for ag, to see the trend accelerate," said Greg Peterson, the founder of Machinery Pete, a farm equipment data company in Rochester with a website and TV show.
Previously;
Reeducating Legislators on the Right to Repair (2019)
John Deere Just Swindled Farmers Out of Their Right to Repair (2018)
US Copyright Office Says People Have the Right to Hack their Own Cars' Software (2015)
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Unixnut on Thursday January 09 2020, @10:15PM (30 children)
I am finding a similar thing with cars as well. As cars get more and more complex and hard to repair, not to mention more and more hard to debug/fix without expensive factory "debug software", more and more people are going for older cars.
The number of problems my colleagues have with new cars from "reliable brands", like BMW and Audi is mad. Loads of odd software/sensor/electrical errors, including one guys Porsche cabrio that randomly decided to open its roof in the middle of the night. This being the UK, it was pouring with rain overnight, so in the morning he went out to a soaked interior. That had to go back for a firmware update, but the car was out of warranty, so it cost a good chunk of change for the repair, and to try to salvage the interior.
My cabrio roof is manual, so I never have to worry about such an event, for example. And the above problems are without DRM even. I don't think cars have DRM (yet, I've not come across it), but I expect that one day they will do that too, making cars complete black boxes.
My newest car is 2004, and that does do random things, such as the radio turning on full blast randomly on some nights (only symptom was a dead battery in the morning, until my neighbours knocked on my door at 3am and complained about the car radio). and the windows sometimes randomly winding down (only when I am driving though, never when the alarm is on). On an old car I could just trace the wires, check the fuses, see if there is a short, or what is going on, but the window switches are not simply wires, but are IC's connected to the car message bus, so god knows what is triggering the motors to wind down or the radio to turn on randomly.
Turns out the radio is a known firmware bug, which can't be updated as the car is out of warranty, which is frustrating. The "fix" is to put a blank CD in the drive. So it plays silence for 20 mins, then turns off. This tends to not drain the battery too much, and doesn't disturb the neighbours. However, the radio being proprietary/integrated in the car message bus, I can't just replace it with a single-DIN aftermarket radio like in the old cars.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 09 2020, @11:06PM (8 children)
Of course cars like Mercedes, Audi, and BMW are going to cost a lot more to maintain. That's why I drive a Toyota Corolla. Nothing wrong with a Camry or a Corolla, if you want a status car you're going to pay more. Even oil changes are a lot more expensive on those status cars.
I don't know how you can consider a car that costs a lot more to maintain per mile drive to be more reliable. Isn't the point of something being reliable to save you money?
Interestingly my Corolla has a radio bug as well. I think it's weather related, it seems to act up when the weather is hot but usually works fine when the weather is cold. When it acts up it either has difficulty turning on or when it does turn on it either won't switch stations or it turns off when I try to change stations. Now that it's winter it's been working fine though. I Googled it I guess it's a common issue with my car. Oh well, it's not worth replacing my radio for that.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Unixnut on Thursday January 09 2020, @11:28PM (7 children)
> Of course cars like Mercedes, Audi, and BMW are going to cost a lot more to maintain. That's why I drive a Toyota Corolla. Nothing wrong with a Camry or a Corolla, if you want a status car you're going to pay more. Even oil changes are a lot more expensive on those status cars.
> I don't know how you can consider a car that costs a lot more to maintain per mile drive to be more reliable. Isn't the point of something being reliable to save you money?
In Europe German cars are seen as reliable. The whole "German reliability" thing. The Japs are seen as reliable as well, but not as popular here (Germany is right next door, while Japan isn't). Indeed the old German cars were phenomenally reliable. The fact that 70s Mercedes are still used as taxis in places in Europe is testament to that. The new ones however, are poor (I would say they started to go downhill round 2001). Funny thing here is Mercedes are so popular as taxis that they are not really considered status symbols (unless you get the large engined/AMG models).
And for me, reliability does not need correlate to being cheap to run. Reliability to me is having systems, when properly maintained, to not break. Sure, I can forgive a 15-20 year old car if it has the odd hiccup every couple of years, as wear and tear do their thing, but for a 1 to 3 year old car to have such issues is not acceptable, no matter how cheap (or expensive) it is to maintain. Especially as the issues are not due to poor maintenance or age, but due to firmware bugs, or over-engineered complexity (the more complex a system, the more failure modes it has).
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday January 10 2020, @12:03AM
Our 2002 is a Mercedes - as for reliable? The wiring harness in those years was absolutely atrocious: thin wires carrying high current (for example to the halogen headlamp bulbs) with insulation that self-destructed in less than 10 years. The stunt that has us looking for a replacement was a battery killing - just decided to drain its battery overnight for no apparent reason. Automatic everything and one system or another decided to not shut off. If you're going to build a "smart" car, you should at least have a battery self-defense module that prevents the 12V cell from being drained to 7.6.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 10 2020, @12:04AM (2 children)
Nah, they went downhill from the 90s on. European Common Market was well established by the late 80s, and they were shit-scared of Japanese onslaught on their auto market due to their super reliability and low maintenance costs.
Up through the 80s, though, "German reliability" in their cars were for real - the indestructible MB 300D and BMW 5-series from that era stand out. Audi, not so much.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 10 2020, @04:35AM
I get the strong idea the people buying these status cars are signalling they are rich beyond comprehension.
Whereas I look at them kinda like having to ask Dad for the car keys, knowing he will want to know exactly where I am going and what I did. And he might allow me to drive it.
I do not like having to get permission all the time like an irresponsible adolescent kid.
Or a super rich luxury car owner.
Having DRM on your stuff only signals you will accept someone else determining what you will be allowed to do, and is watching you to verify your obedience.
A bird in a gilded cage.
And they want me to buy the cage as well. Well, some people will take it. Treating me thusly just insults me and makes me angry.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Friday January 10 2020, @11:53AM
Yup. My dad got a 1998 5-series and it needed neverending fixing, including some bugs like the steering wheel randomly lowering itself down to the lowest position that the BMW service guys never managed to fix. There's a car buying guide here that tracks service records of most cars on the road and it rated the 5-series from around the time my dad got his as "lemon, avoid if possible". It also had incredibly poor headroom for such a large car, I had to bend my head sideways to sit in it, which I've never had to do on any Japanese hatchback. And those things just run forever, and cost very little to fix if there's a problem, unlike the German imports.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 10 2020, @12:21AM (2 children)
German cars are seen as reliable in Europe because they are usually made in Germany or some other European cars. German cars in the U.S. are made in Mexico or "assembled" in the U.S. with imported parts. If you actually check the prices for used cars in the U.S., the prices of ones that come from German factories are much higher than others because of the difference in quality. My mechanic can tell them apart, usually on sight of the exterior or engine, and once showed me a spreadsheet of all the work he does on cars and the difference between where the German brands were made was astounding.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Friday January 10 2020, @07:03PM (1 child)
> German cars are seen as reliable in Europe because they are usually made in Germany or some other European cars.
OTOH, French, Italian and British cars have a terrible reputation for reliability...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 11 2020, @10:01PM
Yeah, that second cars at the end of the sentence was supposed to be "country" as a reference to the location of the factories.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday January 09 2020, @11:25PM (3 children)
You need to put in a master switch for all the electrics. Or just pull the cable from the battery's negative terminal.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 10 2020, @12:30AM (2 children)
If you disconnect the battery on a USA-spec car the computer will "reset" and you will have to drive some distance (50-70 miles??) before the emissions system self-tunes to the car. In that interval the car probably won't pass any emissions testing (required in my state for the annual inspection).
And of course you will probably lose time on the car clock, and the radio might go into self-protect mode and require unlocking with a passcode before it will work. All of the above happened on my 2009 when I changed the battery. There are probably more things to go wrong with power outage on newer cars.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday January 10 2020, @02:12AM
I think we're in trouble [gstatic.com]
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 10 2020, @08:12AM
At least that is all you had. I mentioned on a different story having to have my mechanic come out and do something with his scan tool and a procedure off of Alldata before I could start my car. At least the radio remembered the time and presets.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Rich on Thursday January 09 2020, @11:39PM (4 children)
Oh, they do. A lot.
For my tiny, old 2006 Smart fortwo, there are digital restrictions in place that keep you from swapping out certain modules. The not-even-a-car Renault Twizy was closed with an "upgrade" at some point in its lifecycle that kept you from doing a few useful things, non-upgraded models are sought after. The Nissan GT-R R35 was said to have "unbreakable" firmware (but eventually some English companies managed to do mods). So it's everywhere.
Add to that, that old-school mechanical workshop floor mechanics have no idea about, say, "bus termination of differential signaling multi-drop controller area networks" so more confusion arises when they pull a works stereo and the poor ECU goes into panic mode, because it can no longer talk to the cruise control buttons. (From the sound of the words they'd probably think that's a big bus stop in a communist country, rather than a little plug that goes at the end of the strange wire that they just pulled out of the radio...). Not intended as such, but practical restrictions management.
Aside from the Smart, I've got two late 80s/early 90s classics that have 4th Gen GM ECUs. These are still something that can be tackled, the code sits in an EPROM and is 68HC11, although the logic flow is said to be in a very unreadable linear sequence. Also, part of the "personality" module is an analog resistor module (the "CAL" part of the 4th Gen MEMCAL, or of the the 3rd Gen MEMPAK/CALPAK duo) that, last time I looked, no one on the open internet had understood. I'll keep those cars, just as some of the most American farmers now start looking at ex-Soviet tractors from Belorussia...
(Score: 3, Touché) by JoeMerchant on Friday January 10 2020, @12:05AM (2 children)
You can always unbolt the EFI and strap on carburetors and a mechanical spark distributor...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Rich on Friday January 10 2020, @02:20AM
Tough luck for me. It's a direct injected diesel. But I've seen conversions to Hayabusa 1300 engines. The little bubble gets a little more bubbly with those. :) Kind of defeats its purpose for me, though. I'd rather swap out the drive unit for an electric one. Really perverse: A mechanic who knows the car can swap the whole rear-axle-engine compound in under an hour, but it's impossible to swap any electronics module without dealership "programming". OTOH, the car is so simple that anyone with decent Arduino attitude could hack out fitting firmware in a month - well, bar the complicated emission test detection and defeat logic :P
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday January 10 2020, @06:47AM
Or an aftermarket fuel injection system. And some of them use GM PCMs. I'm fixin' to build a programming interface...
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 10 2020, @12:38AM
VW has a nice trick. The “radio” is main computer with GPS input. So it is the NTP for the whole car. If you pull or it fails the car shuts down. Can not control the timing of the injectors.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 09 2020, @11:46PM (7 children)
Sarcasm?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Unixnut on Friday January 10 2020, @12:04AM (6 children)
> Sarcasm?
Common perception :-P
Saying that, those companies are trading on the momentum of their legacy and "brand". Loads of people still associate them with quality and reliability, even though IMO that has not been the case for the last 18 years. Every time I sat in one of them they always felt so cheap and plasticky. They feel like a VW with a badge slapped on them, and then sold for 40%+ premium.
If they are not going to build quality, I am not going to pay their premium, especially when they try to convince me I am buying a "Brand lifestyle". Tits to that, I am buying a vehicle, not your life image. I would sooner buy a VW (and I almost did, but my heart overtook my head, and I bought something Italian instead).
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 10 2020, @12:21AM (2 children)
Actually European chumps I know swear by VW (still, at least some of them) as the standard of "German engineering" and reliability, basically the Toyota of Europe.
As for Italian, you know what to expect, and at least it's pretty and fun (when not broke down).
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Friday January 10 2020, @12:58AM (1 child)
> Actually European chumps I know swear by VW (still, at least some of them) as the standard of "German engineering" and reliability, basically the Toyota of Europe.
They were, until the (T)FSI era. Those engines are awful. Already leaking oil through their piston rings after 3 years. VW owns Audi and Porsche, so their faults with penny pinching and bad software propagates through the brands. The good thing is that everyone and their mother knows someone who can work on a VW. They are quite modular and easy to repair, and parts are plentiful. Also because they share technology, you can sometimes fit parts (like the in car entertainment system) from upmarket brands into yours. Decent hackable cars.
However VW had its golden moment from the 80s till the 00's (the GTIs, the G-lader, and the VR6 are highly regarded). They still do good stuff upmarket (with their Lamborghini and Bugatti brands), but fact is if they skimped there people would not buy them.
> As for Italian, you know what to expect, and at least it's pretty and fun (when not broke down).
Oh god yes. I would never recommend it to others, but it makes everything, even my commute a smile inducing moment. If I have to drive, I want to have a grin on my face and a desire to do it more, which it gives me in spades.
The biggest irony is the jokes all my collegues gave me when I bought it. All the typical "You must like to spend time by the road", "So you want to be on first name basis with your mechanic", "I guess we won't be seeing you in the office often", etc... yet I average 30,000 miles per year in it, while their German machinery spends most of its life in garages getting repaired. I honestly expected that it would be the other way around.
The car just passed 100,000 miles, and the only problems I had were with the German bits:
1. The alternator went (Bosch), but they go eventually due to the extreme environment they operate in
2. The Window issue (Bosch), no idea what could be causing it. It might be a spurious/corrupted packet from some other ECU (or even the radio firmware bug). It is all on the same bus, which is mad.
3. The Radio (Blaupunkt). My hope, that it being a Blaupunkt under the skin, I may be able to switch it out with a standard Blaupunkt instead. However the fact it has the odd frimware bug that standard radios don't, make me worry that the firmware has been customised, which is what caused the bug in the first place, and may preclude me from switching it with an aftermarket radio.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 10 2020, @03:36AM
I remember there were some transmission issues too:
https://www.caradvice.com.au/235101/volkswagen-australia-recalls-25000-cars-over-dsg-defect/ [caradvice.com.au]
https://www.caradvice.com.au/800297/new-recall-of-80000-volkswagen-audi-and-skoda-cars-with-dsg-gearboxes-some-for-the-second-time-in-six-years/ [caradvice.com.au]
And not like they weren't affected by the takata airbag problems either: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2019/02/08/takata-airbag-recall-hits-subaru-tesla-bmw-volkswagen-mercedes/2811743002/ [usatoday.com]
FWIW I've heard the older Mercedes Benz cars are pretty good when it comes to maintenance and repairs.
Rotary engine Mazdas come to mind... :)
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 10 2020, @02:21PM (2 children)
Same with Pyrex state-side, Pyrex containers are now just regular glass, so all that "pyrex doesn't shatter with temperature changes" is just plain false, and has been for over 30 years.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 11 2020, @02:44AM
Secondhand PYREX (nb. never pyrex or Pyrex) ftw. If, of course, there's a secondhand market close to you - not the case for many rural folks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 12 2020, @03:03AM
PYREX in all caps is used to denote borosilicate glass [wikipedia.org] and pyrex in all lowercase is tempered glass [wikipedia.org]. If you have mixed case, then you have to check the date of manufacture, markings, or tint to know for sure.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday January 10 2020, @12:00AM
Our newest is a 2002, it was an "advanced luxury model" at the time, and it's about to get sold because it's flaking out too much.
1999 didn't seem to be too bad - our 1999 pickup truck has some gremlins in the seat belt control module - fairly easily controlled, and the ECU does weird stuff just after first startup if you idle too long, but give it a reboot and it still runs fine at 140,000 miles. We also have a 1999 Miata which seems to be mostly free of cyber-gremlins.
Then I've got a 1991 Miata - and it's engine is about ready for replacement (long story, don't ask) - it's been running on an aftermarket ECU since 1997 just fine, and I think the replacement ECU to go with the new engine is looking like a Megasquirt - more open than the Link it has.
If I had all the time in the world to track one down and build it, I'd like to have a ~1969-70 GM A body like the Buick Skylark or similar, new 350 V8 crate motor, open source controlled EFI system on it - I just can't figure out the ideal transmission. Manual would be O.K., I'd actually rather have an automatic in the car but the old automatics are so horribly inefficient and I don't know of any new ones that I would trust the software in.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by anubi on Friday January 10 2020, @01:25AM (2 children)
Unixnut, you just stated the exact reasons I purchased what was then a 20 year old Ford E350 7.3L IDI diesel van off Craigslist, then spent three times it's purchase price fixing it up.
It has an old-school purely mechanical diesel engine, made by International Harvester in it.
It also needed some TLC. Twenty years of use and the suspension is worn. The transmission needed service, etc. New glow plugs. Entire cooling system.
All in all, I now have about $15K in it. And I think it's pretty decent van. I think of it like an old mule. As far as racing goes, I think anything in my neighborhood would outrun it. So far, it's taken me everywhere I want to go for five years now. It's now 25 years old. I am 70. At this point, loyalty to me, not DRM, is very important. This machine has no DRM whatsoever, doesn't need to phone home. Neither are it's allegiances to the Hitler/Microsoft/Telecom/Google
Youth Association https://duckduckgo.com/?q=nazi+using+childern+to+report+parents [duckduckgo.com] involved.
Call me paranoid, but I feel that by allowing a lot of the new technologies in our home, we are allowing various factions to compile reams of data on everytime we violate their wish list. Those can be sold to bounty hunters.
Oh, incidentally, if you are a farmer/rancher/trucker, there is a forum similar to this one for those of us with an interest in Diesel trucks and tractors...
https://www.oilburners.net [oilburners.net]
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 11 2020, @02:47AM (1 child)
Thanks SO much for that link, and for sharing personal details (your age!) which help your situation resonate.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Tuesday January 14 2020, @02:04AM
Yup, I wish I had bought it new, but at that time I needed an inexpensive employee commute car.
And I did not make the best decisions either.
Things age have done to me...I do not have near as much energy as I used to, but it's compensated for by experience which guides me from foolish time and energy wasting endeavors.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]