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Comment by jasode | Hacker News Reader

>the argument is that these new tractors are not repairable by yourself, leading to expensive repair

Correct, but the tradeoff calculation includes offsetting the expensive repair costs with potential increased productivity. Or likewise with the other option, the "savings" from cheap low-tech tractors may be negated by lower productivity.

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That might be justifiable if the service network is basically as fast as a DIY repair, however from what I read it is still treated to be a week-long turnover which might be fine for a low-stake consumer device but a downtime here means that net productivity will be lower than having less efficient but easily repairable machines.

Things will break. Costs isn't everything, time to fix matters. An older tractor can usually be repaired on the same day on-site, causing a few hours of downtime; a newer tractor that will be returned from service in a week causes a huge loss of productivity.

Anyplace you use for service will have a fix it in two hours or you get a loaner policy. The two hours starts when you call, even it the mechanic is an hour away on a different farm. When it is busy season they maintain extra hours

Seems like it would be easily addressed the way car repairs are: insurance pays for a rental while yours is in the shop. So long as peoples equipment isn't all breaking down at the same time, a service with just a few pieces of equipment could probably service a large area. That way you can also get proper repairs done, rather than having to do a quick hack that gets you back up and running by whatever deadline you have but causes long term problems.

Except peoples' equipment would most likely all be breaking down at the same time, because everyone is harvesting at the same time.

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