President Joe Biden's latest executive order is a huge win for right to repair
A sweeping executive order aimed at promoting economic competition and signed Friday by President Joe Biden called on the Federal Trade Commission to institute rules to curb anticompetitive restrictions that limit consumers' ability to repair gadgets on their own terms.
Tucked into the executive order that covered 72 initiatives to promote competition in the US economy, Biden specifically asked the FTC to crack down on "unfair anticompetitive restrictions on third-party repair or self-repair of items, such as the restrictions imposed by powerful manufacturers that prevent farmers from repairing their own equipment."
BIDEN SIGNS EXECUTIVE ORDER ON RIGHT TO REPAIR! (11m48s video)
Many other items besides Right to Repair were covered in the executive order. See, for example: Ars Technica.
Previously: Colorado Denied its Citizens the Right-to-Repair After Riveting Testimony
Apple, Microsoft, and Google Team Up to Block Right to Repair Laws
Related: Right to Repair Rules Will Extend Lifespan of Products, UK Government Says
Related Stories
Colorado Denied Its Citizens the Right-to-Repair After Riveting Testimony:
Colorado’s proposed right-to-repair law was simple and clear. At 11 pages, the legislation spent most of its word count defining terms, but the gist was simple: It would let people fix their own stuff without needing to resort to the manufacturer and force said manufacturer to support people who want to fix stuff.
“For the purpose of providing services for digital electronic equipment sold or used in this state, an original equipment manufacturer shall, with fair and reasonable terms and cost, make available to an independent repair provider or owner of the manufacturer’s equipment any documentation, parts, embedded software, firmware, or tools that are intended for use with the digital electronic equipment, including updates to documentation, information, or embedded software,” the proposed bill said.
Right-to-repair is often spoken of in the context of broken phone screens, but it doesn’t just affect people’s personal devices. Agricultural and medical equipment are increasingly impossible to fix because manufacturers want to maintain a monopoly on repairing the product. These issues can make the right-to-repair literally life and death.
The Colorado House Business Affairs & Labor committee met to consider the law on March 25. Twelve legislators voted to indefinitely postpone considering the bill. Only one voted for it. “I still have a lot of questions. I still have a lot of concerns,” Rep. Monica Duran (D) said at the end of the committee hearing. She voted no on the bill.
[...] It was a stunning statement given just how many people testified on behalf of the right-to-repair legislation and how few questions the committee asked them.
Apple, Google & Microsoft Have Teamed up to Block the Right-to-Repair Law
Apple, Google & Microsoft Have Teamed up to Block the Right-to-Repair Law:
Bloomberg today released a report on how companies like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google are working together to put a stop to laws that would make it necessary for companies to provide device schematics, genuine repair parts, and repair manuals to independent repair technicians.
Almost 27 states have considered the laws in 2021 alone, but in more than half of them, the laws have been voted down or dismissed. Many lobbyists and trade groups representing tech companies have fought hard against this law with Apple pointing out that such measures could lead to device damage or consumers harming themselves when attempting to repair their devices.
In Washington, for example, Washington House of Representatives Democrat Mia Gregerson sponsored a Right to Repair measure that was fought by Microsoft, Google, Amazon, along with lobbyists representing Apple. Lobbyists later said that Apple would endorse repair programs at local colleges if the bill was dropped.
Also at Bloomberg and MacRumors.
See also: Leaked Apple Documents Inadvertently Helped the Right-to-Repair Movement
Louis Rossmann Starts a GoFundMe to Get "Right to Repair" Legistation Passed Through a Direct Ballot
Right to repair rules will extend lifespan of products, government says:
Products such as washing machines, TVs and fridges should become easier to repair and cheaper to run under new rules coming into force.
Manufacturers are now legally required to make spare parts available to people buying electrical appliances. The aim of the new rules is to extend the lifespan of products by up to 10 years and benefit the environment. However, one company said that the new rules could make white goods more expensive.
The right to repair rules are designed to tackle "built-in obsolescence" where manufacturers deliberately build appliances to break down after a certain period to encourage consumers to buy new ones. The new rules apply to products bought from Thursday, but manufacturers have a grace period of up to two years to make spare parts available.
Many consumers have complained that goods don't last long enough, then can't be fixed in the home.
Adam French from consumer group Which? said that electrical items end up in landfill too often "because they are either too costly or difficult to fix". The rules "should ensure products last longer and help reduce electrical waste", he said.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Snotnose on Saturday July 10 2021, @03:32PM (14 children)
Yeah, this one is good. But you're basically letting 1 person make laws, with no input from Congress or the voters. That's called a dictatorship.
Congress should banish these damned things ASAP.
You can call me antisocial. Just don't call me.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Booga1 on Saturday July 10 2021, @03:50PM
Agreed, but both parties seem to LOVE this stuff when you look closely at it. Both parties cry foul when they're not in charge, but both turn right around and use it to sidestep the legislature when they get a president. Then when the president gets swapped out each side acts surprised when what got put in with a stroke of a pen is undone with a stroke of a pen.
It's a "win" for whichever party is in charge and a "win" again for the party that's out of power when it comes to rhetoric pointing out how "President $current is a dictator!"
Congress could fix this and it's been going on since the beginning, so it's pretty clear they don't want to fix it. Heck, recent presidents aren't even close to being the worst offenders. Just take a look at this chart of orders by presidents. [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Saturday July 10 2021, @04:10PM (5 children)
I like the way you think. But didn't Congress already write laws against anticompetitive behavior? Which the Executive Branch can enforce as necessary?
At a guess, Magnuson-Moss and antitrust may be the foundation.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by sjames on Saturday July 10 2021, @06:06PM (4 children)
Yes. Biden's orders here are literally instruction to the FTC to actually enforce laws that Congress already wrote.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 10 2021, @11:19PM (1 child)
No they arent, dipshit, they're an order to draft those laws. And with Jewish corporations writing American laws, they could make things much worse by codifying them rather than leaving them in a nebulous grey area. Can you imagine what would happen if Apple or John Deere drafted right-to-repair laws?
And that's assuming that the laws are actually drafted and implemented. The EO, with respect to right-to-repair laws, is just lip-service as-is. It's possible that nothing happens of it, or that the laws are drafted in such a way to keep things the way they are good and bad. The "BIDEN SIGNS EXECUTIVE ORDER ON RIGHT TO REPAIR!" line in the summary is pretty disgusting. I mean, yeah, you would call your senile retarded grandpa a good boy for not throwing his spoon or using racial slurs at the dinner table, but you wouldn't go around bragging about it to the whole neighborhood. I haven't seen the editors this excited about anything since the local Chabad house offered them a caviar dish full of fresh foreskins.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 10 2021, @11:48PM
Dear god you're one anti-semitic little cuck aren't you? Did some Jewish guy with a more skilled dick take yo girl? Was it Jeff Goldblum? I hear he is quite the lady killer, even as an old geezer. Or perhaps you are hitler's great grandson? Do you have a cleft lip too? Is that why you grew a pedo-stash?
(Score: 4, Informative) by digitalaudiorock on Sunday July 11 2021, @04:39PM (1 child)
Thanks for this...a lesson for us to actually RTFA I guess. From the article itself:
So yea...he's just telling them to enforce existing laws...yet almost every other post here assumes that he's bypassing Congress to create laws.
(Score: 2) by slinches on Monday July 12 2021, @03:54PM
The power in executive orders comes from so many laws being on the books and having so many federal agencies with broad reach. If you have enough of those, then the President can set policy by choosing which laws to enforce and who runs the various agencies.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RS3 on Saturday July 10 2021, @05:48PM
Most people are okay with EOs when they favor the order, and vehemently oppose them otherwise, and that's pretty obvious.
The problem is that Congress is often very very slow to act. (Should be obvious that EOs can happen much faster.)
I'm still not sure how senators and representatives get the information on which they make decisions (various committees, etc.) but it's anything but an agile process.
And one could argue they're more easily / likely to be influenced by $ in one way or another than a president.
I'll continue to say: get rid of lobbying altogether. Or get the People's Lobby running well so we're heard. And poll all of us on all issues. And maybe hopefully weigh the poll, like "on a scale of 1 - 10, how much do you work on your own car?". So if the person is a 1, maybe their vote only counts 1, and someone who works on their car a lot, gets more voting points. I know, not easy to enforce, but again, I'm not saying make it written in stone, but be agile- work on the process, improve, refine, etc., working toward congress making laws that actually represent us.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 10 2021, @07:27PM
Bullshit.
No input from congress ? The law giving the President the power of executive orders was ratified by an act of congress.
Or the voters ? Last time I checked, both the President and all members of congress were democratically elected by the voters.
What do you want ? That every state and federal law by voted on by popular vote ? Most people can't even make a freaking budget for their homes.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Gaaark on Saturday July 10 2021, @08:15PM (2 children)
Sometimes the best form of government is a benevolent dictatorship. Too bad too many people are not caring about being benevolent to the 'people'.
In this case, this is a good decision and a benevolent one, to the 'people' and the environment.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 10 2021, @09:31PM
Benevolent dictatorship is historically the best form of government for as long as they last. The problem is that they very rarely last longer than a single term, usually end in regicide, and almost invariably become tin-pot dictatorships after that, often after a civil war to determine the next (usually corrupt) leader. The changeovers are always bloody, too, since the first thing a good king does is execute all of the supporters of the previous corrupt regime for their crimes and the first thing a bad king does is execute or enslave all of the supporters of the good king for not being corrupt enough. Two of the best examples are Carthage's golden age under Hannibal, which lasted from 200 BC to 196 BC, before he was banished by the Romans, and Julius Caesar who reigned from 49 BC to 44 BC, ending with his assassination because he tried to reform the government.
Multi party democracy is a notoriously inefficient form of government but it tends to be stable over the long term and is the only known system where a bad leader can be removed without bloodshed.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @10:09AM
But the corporations are people too. Won't somebody think of the shareholders!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @04:39PM
Executive orders were never intended to be as widely used as they have been. Executive orders are more or less the President telling the bureaucracy what the priorities are and how to do their jobs. It was never supposed to be equivalent to actual laws. But, it's been going on for so many decades now that it might not be possible to stop it any time soon.
The whole point of an executive order is that it's supposed to be relatively easy to do and to change, for things where the legislation doesn't indicate specifics. So, telling the FCC that the President wants certain types of regulation here is completely appropriate to the process. The same goes with orders to the DoJ to take more enforcement actions related to possible antitrust violations. Or to engage in BDS. Although in the last case, that shouldn't be done this way as it's already illegal to do business with states that are engaged in crimes against humanity in most instances.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday July 12 2021, @10:45AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday July 10 2021, @03:33PM (30 children)
But that doesn't make it right. This isn't something you do with an executive order. The next sumbitch to park his senile ass in the Oval office can execute a different order.
This needs to be addressed by the legislature, not the Assburger in Chief.
We're gonna be able to vacation in Gaza, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and maybe Minnesota soon. Incredible times.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 10 2021, @04:15PM (26 children)
Get used to it while the R-team's only goal is to deadlock and occasionally shovel through judges.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 10 2021, @05:50PM (22 children)
Yes, only the "R-team" does that, right?
Try to find a more neutral news source. Or at least check a known conservative news source once in a while. I know, your head will explode and make a mess.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 10 2021, @06:13PM (1 child)
Sadly, the liberal-D mindset is:
Obstruction is manna from heaven, when my team (D) is the side doing it.
Obstruction is the end of the world when the other side (R) is doing it.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 10 2021, @09:13PM
And, note how the horde of programmed liberal-D's that infest Soylent dislike seeing the truth.
(Score: 5, Informative) by helel on Saturday July 10 2021, @06:28PM (13 children)
Please, list some of the big examples of the Ds being obstructionist. Trump wanted to repeal Obamacare? Mitch McConnell blocked it. Trump wanted $2000 stimulus checks? McConnell again! I know Moscow Mitch might seem like a bleeding heart liberal but he's actually registered Republican. Shocking, right?
But, lets check a known conservative news source... Republicans Block... [foxnews.com] McConnell will block... [foxnews.com] McConnell blocked... [foxnews.com] Republicans poised to block... [foxnews.com] McConnell Blocks... [foxnews.com] GOP Blocks... [foxnews.com]
Seems like even conservative propaganda demonstrates that it's the "R-team" that dose most of the blocking. They just spin it as a positive.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 10 2021, @06:53PM (1 child)
You need some CBD oil in your diet! You're biased, and a bit triggered. There are very few people who are neutral enough to tally the score, and frankly, those people (like me) don't care enough to. Again, you need some CBD oil, or something stronger. Try to enjoy life and let go of the anxiety over politics. It's all a huge BS show anyway.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 10 2021, @07:24PM
It's all so complicated! You need a PhD... but that makes you a dreaded elite EXPERT. Keep watching the One True news.
(Score: 2, Informative) by fustakrakich on Saturday July 10 2021, @08:01PM (9 children)
Their refusal to kill the filibuster is the elephant in the room, yet everybody keeps on blaming republicans. The ball is in the democrats' court. They can end the obstruction today.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Insightful) by helel on Saturday July 10 2021, @08:12PM (8 children)
I think there's an argument to be made that the democrats benefit from republican obstructionism. "Sorry, we can't do anything about global warming or health care and it's totally the republicans fault and not us bowing to corporate interests." Still, that's democrats allowing republicans to block any attempt at progress, not democrats blocking it themselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 10 2021, @09:03PM (1 child)
That argument could be made, but it's invalid.
It is very much akin to the game of "why do you keep hitting yourself".
Then again conservatives for sure are one big con...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 10 2021, @10:31PM
Hmm, smells like a DeathMonkey response. He has to ask the democrat voters that question.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Saturday July 10 2021, @10:24PM (5 children)
Exactly.. The newspapers are full of stories blaming the republicans. The DNC/GOP is a coalition party playing "opposition" theater that receives over 98% of the vote. Their no "losing". This is their game, and it's working like a charm.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday July 10 2021, @10:26PM
Um... they're not "losing"...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @03:19AM (1 child)
Worst system ever, except for the other ones.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday July 11 2021, @04:03AM
The system is fine, just not very forgiving to operator error/sabotage
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday July 12 2021, @10:52AM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2, Interesting) by fustakrakich on Monday July 12 2021, @04:15PM
They don't even try to hide it anymore. [washingtonpost.com]
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 13 2021, @02:15PM
Ok, to quote one of Fusty's favorites:
Democrats used filibuster 327 times, compared to only once by GOP in 2020: Report [washingtonexaminer.com]
That is 327 instances of Ds being obstructionist.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Mykl on Sunday July 11 2021, @12:24AM (5 children)
This has been the prime objective of McConnell ever since the mid-terms after Obama first stepped into the Oval Office. He is on the record as saying his sole objective was to stop the Democrats from being able to do anything. He re-iterated that when Biden got in.
The reasoning is: nothing will get done under the D's - better vote in the R's!
The fact that not much got done under Trump was probably more to do with how bad most of Trump's ideas were, but probably also a lot of Mitch's 6-year block habit being hard to break. Mitch knew that repealing Obamacare would be a disaster for his home state, which receives more net federal aid per capita than any other. Yes, Kentuckians are deep red but also massive welfare leeches.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @02:21AM (4 children)
No, it was just the Rs riding the populist train while not wanting to go literal US Nazis. Came close enough, and they refuse to condemn literal insurrectionists :|
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @03:03AM (3 children)
Just to be clear, when you talk about "literal insurrectionists" do you mean the folks who showed up, were let in, sat around, didn't declare a new government, didn't try to destroy any buildings or kill anybody, had some photo ops and then left after a while?
If so, what's the word for people who showed up, weren't let in, threw explosives and incendiaries, beat up their perceived enemies and kept reconvening night after night assailing government buildings after prior events had been declared riotous assemblies?
Just asking for a friend.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Tork on Sunday July 11 2021, @04:09PM
Yeah, they were so well behaved the Republicans didn't even want to be bothered investigating it.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈 - Give us ribbiti or make us croak! 🐸
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday July 12 2021, @10:55AM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 12 2021, @07:08PM
Pay more attention.
People want to paint the January 6th crowd as insurrectionists.
Did they actually foment an insurrection? No. They did precisely none of the big items that you could call an insurrection. They had a rather rowdy sit-in. They didn't declare a new government or attempt to unseat the previous one.
But the people flinging the "insurrectionist" label are stubbornly ignoring the people in their corner who are objectively, in terms of their activities, a lot closer to insurrection (although I wouldn't quite call it that, just yet).
That's the problem here: they're pushing a narrative which is demonstrably incorrect, without regard for the implications in their own corner. It's a biased approach based on trying to paint their adversaries as enemies of the system, when in actual fact they're the more plausible perpetrators.
So, equivalence? Nope. Honest? Nope. No idolatry required.
But keep pretending that it's all groovy.
(Score: 0, Redundant) by fustakrakich on Saturday July 10 2021, @07:57PM (2 children)
There is no reason to even talk about the republicans right now, they only have influence because the dems won't kill the filibuster. Deadlock in congress is very bipartisan.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @03:25AM
I see, it's the Democrats fault. /sarc
The R's know they have structural advantage in the Senate so changing to the 50% rule would ultimately help them. They just want the D's to do it - optics, I guess? But this is the party that cheers people dying in the street if they're lazy homeless bums.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday July 12 2021, @10:56AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @02:59AM (1 child)
Maybe if the right would stop obstructing everything in Congress, this could be passed in Congress and there wouldn't be an executive order.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @03:28AM
Oh look, there are 50 votes against already so that's a no-go. What was the bill about by the way?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @05:42PM
Depends, some of this stuff is exactly what the executive order process is for. For example, directing the DoJ to actually enforce the law is well within the purview of the President. Same goes for directing the FCC to use their statutory authority to bring back net neutrality.
The problem is that both parties have allowed for the power of the President to greatly increase over the last few decades with no signs of that stopping. It's the same reason that they've allowed the courts to do more than they should. The courts are just supposed to determine how the laws are applied and whether or not the laws are constitutional. The politicians are supposed to do basically everything else. But, they've increasingly leaned on unelected judges to legislate as well to the point where neither party has any real incentive to push for policy changes.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 10 2021, @03:38PM (1 child)
A step in the right direction!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 10 2021, @06:56PM
lol, "right to repair" -aka- "right to break things you own" is actually a default in the universe and requires a "law" to make it ..uhm ..err... illegal.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Socrastotle on Saturday July 10 2021, @04:02PM (1 child)
This is the real question. Many thought that the EU passing the GDPR would be a gamechanger for sites like Facebook, Google, etc that rely on harvesting users information often without their knowledge or consent in order to exploit them for monetary gain.
In practice? It had next to no effect on these companies but has greatly expanded the difficulty of operation for smaller sites for whom an inadvertent violation could be business destroying as the fines are structured in the fashion of "4% or $20 million, whichever is greater". So even if Facebook/Google/etc somehow managed to lose a case, it'd be a tiny fraction of their earnings, yet for a small business grossing $500k a year? They could face a fine of up to $20 million. Capitalism 2.0.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday July 10 2021, @08:05PM
Yes, was there ever any real doubt that's how it's supposed to work?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 10 2021, @04:59PM (28 children)
Look at it: he's asking the FTC to do their jobs.
The whole role that they have is already written into law; there's nothing new here, except a sort of symbolic act.
It also isn't clear how preventing self-repair is explicitly anti-competitive. You could make a sort of wobbly case around independent mechanics, and perhaps exploitation of the consumer, but no new standard is created here.
It looks good, but it's hollow.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 10 2021, @05:04PM (1 child)
>> It looks good, but it's hollow.
Yup, that's the Biden presidency in a nutshell.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 10 2021, @06:43PM
>>>> It looks good, but it's hollow.
>> Yup, that's the Biden presidency in a nutshell.
All those vaccinated folks who didn't die of covid look pretty solid.
(Score: 5, Touché) by sjames on Saturday July 10 2021, @06:09PM (24 children)
You don't see how a manufacturer declaring that there can be only one repair center might discourage competition for repair?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 10 2021, @06:31PM
There are some that are blind. Whether this is intentionally blind, or blind because they simply lack education, is unknowable from this side of the internet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 10 2021, @09:36PM (22 children)
That's a nominal case, but far from a slam-dunk given the history of US jurisprudence on the topic. If you look at the established history on, for example, auto repair, Ford is pretty happy to design engines the way that they do so that regular tools simply won't work on them - but you can't just go ahead and restrict car makers to a particular toolset, because then you preclude addition of a whole set of new technologies. Also, Ford is happy to get various mechanic shops certified as official Ford repair shops, thus it's not a monopoly by clear definition. You'd have to go digging around all sorts of peripheral theories.
The point is that the way that the law is written and judged today doesn't support a slam-dunk wreck-the-monsters judgement - and the same applies to John Deere, Caterpillar and the rest of them. And they know it. Which is why this mostly amounts to some combination of masturbation and chest-thumping.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 10 2021, @09:57PM
> Ford is happy to get various mechanic shops certified as official Ford repair shops
But Tesla has very few shops (and they own them all, don't certify any 3rd parties, afaik).
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Saturday July 10 2021, @10:04PM (14 children)
You make something of a point with Ford specialized tools. But, Ford, to the best of my knowledge, has always made those tools available, at the slightly exorbitant prices that you would expect from auto manufacturers. (to clarify, somewhat, cheap wrenches might cost a guy the equivalent of an hour's wages, high quality wrenches 3 hour's wages, but Ford's special wrenches might cost him a day's wages - exorbitant, but not out of reach) Again, to the best of my knowledge, Ford has not historically produced motor vehicles that could not be worked on by a shade tree mechanic. In recent times, there are components that are not user serviceable - computers and cards, mostly - but nothing bars a computer tech from probing into those computers, and making potential changes.
All of this is a far cry from the current situation, where John Deere and the rest simply refuse to permit anyone to work on their equipment.
We're gonna be able to vacation in Gaza, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and maybe Minnesota soon. Incredible times.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 10 2021, @10:29PM (13 children)
Your information is accurate, but out of date. It's been a sore point, especially among Ford truck mechanics. When you need a new toolkit for practically every new model family, it gets pretty lousy, and one of the typical problems is that things are sufficiently tight under the hood that you need specialised tools even to disassemble things to the point that you can work on them.
The days of a socket set, a plug gap kit and a Chilton's manual are long gone as far as general work is concerned.
John Deere isn't _quite_ refusing to permit anyone to work on their equipment. They can't stop people from doing it. They're simply refusing to cooperate. Once you've bought it, you can take it out back, fill it with gas tanks packed with Tannerite, and blow it sky high. But they don't provide parts, instructions or information on what to do with it, and they're trying to do an end-run around final sale rules by requiring licensing of intellectual property in it.
(Footnote: this is basically why I'm not buying a Deere or similar for my farm. My last tractor purchase was from a small independent corporation that actually publishes all their work data down to engine specs, and thus basically has the equivalent of an old Ford n-series tractor in terms of maintainability.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 10 2021, @11:35PM (10 children)
》 My last tractor purchase was from a small independent corporation that actually publishes all their work data
Which? And are you satisfied with it?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @12:16AM (9 children)
Struck corporation.
Very satisfied.
Maintenance manuals: great. Detailed instructions on everything from regular maintenance to fixing or replacing parts, adding options, all there. Direct access to their own experts. Regular tools work fine, and their included maintenance kit is good stuff. If you're comfortable turning a wrench, and can trace a hydraulic line, you're good to go.
It is quirky, because the tracks mean that everything happens a bit more slowly than on wheels, but it's more stable on sloped ground, with less soil compaction and more delivery of actual power to haul serious mass. It's also very nimble because of the tracked design, and the actual price is amazing for what you get.
It's no substitute for a 500hp monster, if you have 10000 acres, but for a small farmer trying to work delicate soils on bad topography it's a more modern, efficient, maintainable alternative to an old n-series tractor, with better factory support. Seriously compare the prices between their MH8500, and what you'd get from John Deere for the same money. You're looking at maybe their 3 series of compacts, which doesn't get you tracks, or much in the way of included tools, or pretty much anything fancy attached. If you want anything with actual tracks from Deere, you're looking at their construction gear or really huge equipment, which is a completely different ballgame. The closest equivalent is maybe their skid steers, like the 317, which starts at maybe double the price.
Seriously, if you're in the market for something that will haul a harrow or dig a trench or spread manure without breaking the bank or creating hardpan on your land? I'd start with Struck and tell John Deere and Caterpillar to go suck lemons.
In fact, if you don't need a PTO and don't want to deal with hydraulics, you can even go to their baby RS1000 option, and that will do anything that an ATV will do for you in terms of towable machinery, only better and with less drama.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday July 11 2021, @04:12AM (8 children)
And it runs on Tannerite?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @04:44AM (7 children)
Smart-ass question, but I guess it deserves an answer.
Their top-of-the-line model runs on diesel. The other models run on gasoline - but the corporation is very open to people using their own engines, and in fact in the very bottom model (kit assembly) they offer it without an engine as an option in case you want to install your own. So if you want to try setting it up for propane, or electric, or whatever - do your thing.
(Refreshing my memory from their website): their diesel option is a Kubota inline three, and they regret that it's not made in America, but it really is a very standard, well-understood engine that basically anybody could maintain. Their smaller models use a couple of different engines, from a little Briggs & Stratton 250cc, through a Honda GX390 to a Honda GX690. So, regular pump gas or regular diesel is the default. Runs fine on blue diesel, too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 12 2021, @04:57AM (6 children)
Your whole thing sound like a city slicker playing farmer in order to sell tractors. Either that or you are living in a fantasy land. Though the whole blue diesel part was hilarious cherry on top.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 12 2021, @07:16PM (5 children)
Well, you found me out. I live in a 36th floor condo with a window box, and I grow alfalfa and sunflowers on my three square feet of balcony. I sell toys to suburban fantasists with quarter acre plots and mcMansions.
(For everybody else who doesn't get their thoughts from the dispensary, read and evaluate for yourselves.)
(Score: 2) by DECbot on Monday July 12 2021, @08:17PM (2 children)
God, now you have me wanting to call the local distributor asking for combine recommendations and attachments and payment options said equipment to harvest fields of wheat growing in a couple of flowerbox.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 12 2021, @08:26PM (1 child)
Get a pair of pruning shears. Lubricate it with your tears. Or just grab a sickle, if you can find one.
"My combine is a pair of gardening gloves, a sickle and a basket."
Should get a few youtube videos out of it.
(Score: 2) by DECbot on Monday July 12 2021, @08:36PM
Oh, the trick is to describe the fields as "an inheritance I just got that is growing more wheat that what I know what to do with" and not reveal it's a flowerbox until he's sure it's a new tractor sale with a premium mortgage getting delivered to condo 2B on the 12th floor in NYC.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 14 2021, @07:19AM (1 child)
Makes more sense than the claim you do alfalfa on a tractor with a 5 inch clearance, a 20 hp PTO, running on blue diesel, where a farm of 9000 acres is "small".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 14 2021, @07:53PM
Who the hell said that? The comment above said that it's not a replacement for the 500hp beast. It compared the MH8500 to an old Ford n-series, and that's pretty much on the money for maintenance and power. It also compared money for money with John Deere.
But if you're farming 9000 acres on your granddaddy's Ford, tell us all how you do it.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Sunday July 11 2021, @11:46AM (1 child)
I could probably manage without the instructions. However I understand that the real killer with John Deere stuff is that if you replace a significant part, a hydraulic pump say, it needs to be registered with the central computer or the damn thing won't work. Only John Deere's approved dealers have the software to do the registration.
I can't speak from experience because don't own any John Deere stuff and I don't want to. Two years ago I had a choice between buying one of their tractors and another, and I chose the other.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @07:22PM
Pretty much. It's a trapdoor into their ecosystem.
You could do without it, but then you basically have to gut the whole system and rebuild it without John Deere parts, at which point you paid top dollar for a rolling shell, with parts that you can't sell second-hand.
This is why the availability of the actual information is so important, and why the old school attitude of manufacturers that tell you everything you need to know short of machining standards is so valuable. In terms of lifetime perspective, John Deere is basically making their equipment so vastly less valuable that the value for money just isn't there any more.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday July 10 2021, @11:28PM (5 children)
Most cases I have seen where special tools are required weren't because of some amazing new technology, they were because a lazy ass engineer never considered that the thing might actually need maintenance one day.
I'll grant that tools to interface with the ECU were at one time new, and they were needed to work with an actual innovative technology, but the codes and protocols do not need to be guarded more jealously than the nuclear launch codes. They sure don't need to be trying to dodge the law through technicalities like moving the most helpful information to wireless (Mass. just addressed that one). Note that laws and regulations are why there is an industry standard diagnostic port.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Sunday July 11 2021, @12:02PM (4 children)
I'll tell you a secret.
The designers have never worked on actual physical things in their life, especially not on anything they designed themselves. They will tell you that is old-fashioned and would be beneath their dignity anyway.
In my engineering student days I was in a project team designing a piece of machinery that had a cartridge oil filter. The guy on the drawing board had placed it so it unscewed upwards rathe than downwards. Unscewing downwards contains the old oil, and upwards does not. Talking to him it was clear that the guy had never changed an oil filter in his life, There was no reason the mounting could not be turned downwards on the drawing board and I suggested that to the team. But their reaction was that it made a great practical joke, one guy commenting "Well someone is going to get their shirt dirty, but it won't be me!".
Yet there are those, especially politicians, who believe that the hands of engineering designers, especially those of the likes of Apple and John Deere, are guided by the Hand of God, and iPhones batteries for example cannot be replaced because of some Divine Purpose.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @07:17PM
Some years ago I knew an engineering student in a country that wasn't the USA. His field happened to be chemical engineering, but apparently his experience was common to all engineering disciplines in his alma mater:
In their last year of study, they had one course that was taught at a local technical college, and it was a practical, hands-on course. They were all bright folks with strong aptitudes, so they sucked up all the brazing and soldering and milling and welding course material with glee. Then they were told, for their little course capstone, to use a given bill of materials to design a small fractional distillation plant. No biggie; they were all near-as-dammit fully qualified, so they sailed right in on their AutoCAD or whatever, and came out the other side, pleased as could be with their new design. The professor looks it over, hums and nods, then wanders out of the room to return with a big ol' cart full of pipes and valves and thermostats and things, and said: "Well, here's your parts. Now build it." So after a moment's stunned silence, they roll up their sleeves and go nuts. Cutting wheels trim pipes, propane torches flare, and wrenches crank ... then ... uh ... things come to a halt. I forget what it was; a bolt too close to a flange or similar, but it was the kind of thing that pretty much stopped construction, and they admitted to the professor that, as designed, it could not be constructed. The professor said: "Ahaaaa. You see. Now fix your design so that you can construct it." They did, and they constructed it, and it worked, and they all left the course vastly better practical engineers than they entered.
Very few institutions in the USA seem to have anything like it, and that seems to be a pity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 12 2021, @10:36AM (2 children)
Wouldn't you drain the oil before changing the filter? Being upside down, I would think that the oil would drain through the filter long before you changed it.
(Score: 2) by DECbot on Monday July 12 2021, @08:27PM
By design, the filter will always contain oil when removed. When mounted upsidedown, it will surprise the unwitting person not accustom to removing an oil filter by dumping on his shirt as opposed to dumping on the engine block.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday July 13 2021, @02:25AM
It would take quite a long time for the oil to make it's way through the filter once the oil pressure goes to zero.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday July 11 2021, @11:22PM
Maybe not to you, but to any normally functioning adult it's pretty clear.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 10 2021, @05:11PM (10 children)
I'm afraid they'll set a benchmark standard that is too low once this order is realized. Standards that allow businesses to say "we're compliant" without actually adhering to the real end that is the right (and ability) to repair. Once that standard is crystallized it will weaken the advocates and add a lot of inertia to negotiating parties. And I think we're all capable of reasonable imaginations of what is meant by too low a bar.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RS3 on Saturday July 10 2021, @05:57PM (7 children)
The never-ending philosophical battle over whether a very free market drives overall better economy, or whether too many people get hurt by the greed-driven corporations. Greed is amazingly powerful, and corporations will pretty much always find ways to maximize profit, and skirt regulations (which usually hurt profit). As I commented above, we need more agile government- one that tweaks laws to thwart the skirting, and plug the loopholes. I think it'd help if we all could be more involved in the process... (not sure how to do that, but maybe more polling, People's Lobby, etc.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 10 2021, @07:04PM (4 children)
If you were to ask me, I'd conjecture that abdicating the vast majority of federal power back to the States and decentralizing it even further to county and community levels would make things a lot more "agile" but that comes with a lot of caveats but it also creates a lot of market opportunities on various scales. Of course we won't ever see a movement like that. People would naturally respond more actively if they saw they had some tangible leverage on outcomes, but as things stand we're so deeply outweighed that everything political we do is translated into little more than virtue signalling and divisionism. I'd also posit we'd see a much larger spectrum of experimental polity instead of this homogeneous mix of marginally different policy. E.g. conservatives branching into different policy without having to compete with "liberals" (or vice versa). Creating a more diverse population overall and allowing a greater degree of social and individual autonomy which I think is probably the biggest issue that we face today, though it is fairly insidious and well obfuscated.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 10 2021, @07:26PM (3 children)
Take to logical conclusion - get rid of the oppressive Constitution. Let individual warlords make the local rules.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 10 2021, @11:12PM (2 children)
Your slippery slope argument has me convinced! This local control thing can only end in warlords ruling over a failed state. I am really onboard with the one world govt instead because I fear local control. Better the people have no control at all. Let the experts rule everyone's life instead. They know best.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @04:17AM (1 child)
The One World Govt(tm) will have the equivalent of Congress with nation states as the members. Somewhat like a larger EU. The number of eyeballs on each project will be large. Yes, dreaded experts. But on different sides tussling it out. Like Congress used to be until the fascists decided it was their country.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @06:13AM
Yeah, all of that has worked so well in the US and everyone is well represented and the politicians are held accountable, and wealth is reasonably distributed and the culture is diverse but unified, and we totally haven't been in a decline since the 70's.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 10 2021, @07:06PM
this is too simple and broad. a "free market" will most probably right itself.
however we live in times where the "circle of righting itself" are becoming bigger and bigger and i am not sure how to define the "moment" but maybe it is that a full cycle requires more then one life-time? you will not see a correction in your life time.
anyways, the reason are that things we make are becoming complex and inter-dependent and a naive "free market" in the sense that one person can make a "thing" are long gone.
thus a "free market" is not individuals competing but standards,"armies of laborours", money and ofc money and influence. did i mention money?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by sjames on Saturday July 10 2021, @11:34PM
And of course the trickier cases where regulations make the market more free overall. For example, right to repair restricts the 900 pound gorillas a bit but opens the door to thousands of independent repair places competing freely.
Kinda like when the courts slapped AT&T down and due to a few competitors America discovered that there is really no good reason for a call to the next state to cost over a dollar a minute.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 10 2021, @06:29PM
This, sadly, will be the likely outcome, for no other reason than the FTC drones won't understand that if the manufacturer won't sell you (the owner) the necessary custom parts [1], you can't repair your thing even if you want to.
Or, more likely, they will sell you the part, but at 98.75% of the cost of a brand new device for just that one part. Which very effectively shuts down repair while still selling all the necessary parts (and thereby meeting the letter of the regulation).
Or they won't understand the simple fact that if you can't open the device without also destroying it (I'm looking at you Apple with your glue) then it is not repairable.
Or the drones won't realize that for an electrical/electronic item, that without the manufacturer publishing a schematic, any attempt at repair is made significantly more difficult.
[1] presuming it is one of the ASIC's that has failed. A garden variety swollen chinese won-hun-low capacitor in the switching power supply is easy to obtain a replacement for.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 10 2021, @09:46PM
Pretty typical, really.
You can repair anything you want! We, as manufacturers, don't care!
By the way, the nanosecond you loosen a screw, all warranties disappear in a puff of smoke. And we won't actually provide useful information on the components, beyond unit IDs so that you get to buy them from us, or from shady reverse engineering sites. And you'll have to use half pentalobe, half allen wrenches that sit on six inch, 45 degree angle paths to access. And you'll have to know to discharge a particular voltage across two traces with a 100 ohm resistor first or the thing will self-fry once the light hits a particular sensor. And we set the board in epoxy anyway for shock resistance, and we designed kink zones into the case so that if you don't lever it open in the correct way, you wreck it.
But you can repair anything!
On the other hand, if you require all these tools, information and techniques to be published and available to end users as well as repair shops, it stops being worth going after all these things - but then you have a fat political problem because a lot of manufacturers really REALLY care about this, and a teeny-tiny percentage of voters give a damn about it.
(Score: -1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 10 2021, @06:10PM
(1) you must suck my klingon cock every day for the remainder of the year with no complaints and you will take my cannonball shot of klingon semen into your anus
(2) see #1
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 10 2021, @06:28PM
Ziggy Piggy!: Napoleon finishes all of the ice cream, earning him the title of "Ziggy Piggy."
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(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 10 2021, @06:41PM
On the subject of reunification of the stratosphere, which is perpetually hung by the chimney with care, the equilateral penis needs to hide within the anus duck duck go and google woah now there is a browser called chromium I am sure you have heard of it. It is powerful when you combine the reflector grid in with the good practice of rotating your shield harmonics. my mom sucks romulan cock. At the crest of the mantle, the beacon lights up in the power supply and the utilization of the field generator must be build in Rust. I fucked a chicken once. The prism that occurs when you cross the electrical wires on the motherboard to another motherboard are extreme. Please be careful when working on hardware unprotected.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 10 2021, @10:27PM
"I order you to buy Hunter's paintings for $500,000 to show you appreciate his artistic talents and be sure to say it has nothing to do with his father's position."