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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: 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.
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