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This part caught my eye: Manufacturers and dealerships raised concerns that providing tools and information to farmers would allow equipment owners to illegall

• iancmceachern 4y ago
  No. "But they could do something illegal with the thing they need to do their job" is not a good argument. These tools aren't being used to work on skateboards or jet skis, these tools are being used to fix a tractor so the farmer can do their job. One could think of a ton of illegal things a welder could be used for, but we aren't taking welding tools away from welders are we?
• kmeisthax 4y ago
  No, none of the lockouts were actually intended to prevent farmers from rolling coal in their tractors. Also, I'm not sure why a farmer would want to roll coal. But since rolling coal is a thing that people occasionally do, it's a useful boogeyman. Serialized parts don't prevent you from defeating emissions controls anyway - there's plenty of low-tech ways to tamper with sensors to do the same thing. Even the theft prevention[0] benefits are limited, because the chip with the serial codes on it can be desoldered and resoldered onto a new board. [0] i.e. if someone were to chop-shop your phone or tractor. It happens.
  • dotancohen 4y ago
    Roll coal? Would that be a dangerous term to search for, or should I play ignoramus and ask here?
    • Arrath 4y ago
      A practice typically done by rednecks with their diesel pickup trucks, tweaking the ECU and fuel profiles run the engine overly rich so the exhaust billows out thick black clouds (thus, "rolling coal"), particularly when they rev the engine.
      • jutrewag 4y ago
        Disgusting. I just watched some videos and it seems to be mostly used as a soft attack on bicyclists, environmentalists, pedestrians, people on the left etc. Some “anti-environmentalists” were literally sticking their face right next to the exhaust while it was rolling coal to make a point lol. That’ll show them.
      • userbinator 4y ago
        It's usually done as a form of protest, and in the same way as a horn, not continuously.
    • fanatic2pope 4y ago
      Perfectly SFW example here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2G44D7_p50 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2G44D7_p50
      • Nux 4y ago
        Looks like the Reaver ships in Firefly.
  • malshe 4y ago
    Thanks for the explanation. I did not know rolling coal was a thing. But it clearly looks like a boogeyman
  • HPsquared 4y ago
    Removing the emissions controls on diesel engines (EGR and DPF specifically) can actually give a significant boost to fuel economy. At the cost of higher emissions of particulates and nitrogen oxides. Diesel engines recirculate the exhaust gas for cooler combustion (though less thermodynamically efficient, this reduces nitrogen oxide formation). They also come with particulate filters on the exhaust, which both increase pumping losses and require extra fuel to periodically regenerate the filter (basically burning off the soot particles that were collected, which needs extra heat which takes some fuel). There are reliability improvements to be had as well, reducing operating costs still further (the emissions equipment can get clogged up, especially if the engine isn't running perfectly). So yeah, farmers (all commercial diesel users really) have a strong financial incentive to avoid or remove these emissions controls, provided they don't get caught of course.
• bonestamp2 4y ago
  Performance tuning (horsepower) and bypassing emissions shouldn't be possible by the approved technicians anyway. From my experience, those capabilities are reserved for an engineering tool, not a diagnostics/repair tool. So, those don't seem like legit arguments to me. One safety concern for untrained technicians is the possibility of activating motors, and other circuits during the repair process without ensuring those things are safe to operate in their repair/disassembled state. So, there is a legit safety argument, but that's true for many tools that are sold at the local hardware store.
  • skinkestek 4y ago
    For at least some cars, benchmarking / tuning software seems to be widely available even for unapproved (it seemed to me) technicians.
    • bonestamp2 4y ago
      Fair enough, although not for most vehicles going forward -- they're encrypting all of the bus traffic and have made other security improvements (in response to the 2015 defcon Jeep hack that demonstrated how weak vehicle bus security is among most automakers).
• naikrovek 4y ago
  lots of vendors sell tractors across a line which all have the same engine, but whose horsepower is limited by the ECU according to the actual model that is purchased. pay for the low end model in a line, get lower horsepower. pay for the top of the line, get more horsepower, even though they are physically the same engine. it allows for manufacturers to greatly simplify manufacturing requirements and lower costs, and it allows farmers to buy the tractor they need today and to grow into upgrades as they need them, without the downtime or expense of an engine swap if they need horsepower later. manufacturers are afraid that the tools they would be required to provide could allow someone to "upgrade" their engine for free, but that's not what right to repair is about, and I would be surprised if a law required that upgrades like this be made possible by end users free of charge. so it's a legit concern if you are a manufacturer of tractors and you compare what's being done in other areas of consumer electronics. oscilloscopes today are often sold in this same way: all models have the same potential for performance but are limited in software, so hackers bypass or trick the software to unlock the higher speeds when you only paid for the entry-level scope. In reality it is not much of a concern, since the percentage of customers who do this is extremely small. the main problem for tractor manufacturers is that new regulations require them to spend money in order to be in compliance with those regulations. money that was not budgeted and which affects earnings reports and changes work priorities within a company. The desire to avoid regulations which require expenditure of any kind is what is drives the motivation of every company that resists right to repair efforts.
  • lovemenot 4y ago
    In general market incumbents, especially the larger ones, shouldn't resent new regulation. As long as it affects all their competitors equally, they won't lose market share and can pass on increased costs to customers. In this case, customers receive additional value (right to repair) so they should accept additional costs, if any. I think the manufacturers' real concern has not been cost of compliance, but rather loss of service revenues which business model is arguably customer-hostile.
    • naikrovek 4y ago
      > I think the manufacturers' real concern has not been cost of compliance, but rather loss of service revenues which business model is arguably customer-hostile. well, usually the services needed by the owner are provided by a dealer, and not the vehicle manufacturer, so I'm not sure that holds water. I don't think the manufacturers lose anything except a small amount of goodwill from a dealer who can no longer charge $100 every few years when a particular dealer tool would be needed to convince a tractor to resume operation. that's not a lot of loss for a dealer. manufacturers do supply parts, but that wouldn't change if an end user installs the parts instead of a dealer. most farmers fix their own tractors using first-party parts already.
• yarg 4y ago
  What they actually want is monopoly protections in a legislative regime that is ostensibly anti-monopoly. So they pretty much have to lie.