Right to repair

CLAX1911 said:

I'm a freelance mechanic, that's been working on various things for about 20 years.

As a freelance mechanic I can pick and choose what I work on. Something I've noticed with automobiles are the German automobiles have sometimes punitively high parts replacement costs. Which of course cuts into my profit. So I just don't work on them. I figured the high costs were due to import prices.

So something I've stumbled upon while I was surfing the internet was this article about Farmers buying old tractors driving up the price. And it turns out they're paying 40 to $60,000 for tractors that are over two decades old because the new ones have been designed to where you can't repair them. Either they have some sort of software gateway or they have some form proprietary barrier, forcing you to go through the manufacturer.

Sometimes the manufacturers charge five figures for repairs.

So it got me thinking about right to repair and apparently this is a thing. I was watching a video from a guy who does repairs on cellular phones and computers and he was talking about Apple products. I had an iPod years ago and I was having a little difficulty with its function end basically Apple told me I have to replace it. After spending $300 on it and having it for just over a year. I was done with the product at that point. But apparently things have gotten worse.

So back to right to repair, and what this means. It is essentially legislation that forbids manufacturers from putting on needlessly complicated gateways and proprietary barriers for repairs. Is this a form of Monopoly? Is this a form of antitrust?

I'm not sure this seems to be new territory.

What are your thoughts?

Farmers Are Buying Up Old Tractors Because New Ones Are Pointlessly Complicated and Expensive - The Drive

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I became an Apple certified developer in 1979, and even still had great difficulty getting Apple to give me any information about their O/S. After my 5 MB external hard drive power supply failed on my Apple Profile in 1984 Apple wanted me to replace the entire unit at a cost of $1,500. They were not willing to sell me just the required power supply, nor were they willing to replace it themselves. After 5 years of struggling to get proprietary information in order to develop software for their product, and this latest incident with my Apple Profile was the last straw. I ceased being an Apple certified developer and began developing software exclusively for the IBM PC in 1984.

Companies that make their parts proprietary don't last very long and generally do very poorly in the market. Apple is a fine example of this. IBM did the same thing, briefly, during the early 1990s with their "micro-channel" but that only lasted about two years before they realized how much money they were losing. IBM literally drove people and businesses to buy IBM compatibles rather than IBMs. Which is why IBM ultimately had to give up making PCs altogether.

There are still companies who make proprietary products, like HP, but they never make even a dent in the PC world because nobody with a brain buys their products.

Should we really have to care about "old fashioned way reenactors" in modern times?

Glitch said:

I became an Apple certified developer in 1979, and even still had great difficulty getting Apple to give me any information about their O/S. After my 5 MB external hard drive power supply failed on my Apple Profile in 1984 Apple wanted me to replace the entire unit at a cost of $1,500. They were not willing to sell me just the required power supply, nor were they willing to replace it themselves. After 5 years of struggling to get proprietary information in order to develop software for their product, and this latest incident with my Apple Profile was the last straw. I ceased being an Apple certified developer and began developing software exclusively for the IBM PC in 1984.

Companies that make their parts proprietary don't last very long and generally do very poorly in the market. Apple is a fine example of this. IBM did the same thing, briefly, during the early 1990s with their "micro-channel" but that only lasted about two years before they realized how much money they were losing. IBM literally drove people and businesses to buy IBM compatibles rather than IBMs. Which is why IBM ultimately had to give up making PCs altogether.

There are still companies who make proprietary products, like HP, but they never make even a dent in the PC world because nobody with a brain buys their products.

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I agree that Apple plays it very close to the vest.

To the bolded: what examples can you show for “last very long,” and “do poorly in the market?”


Apple started in 1976 and has a market cap of over a Trillion dollars.

Rexedgar said:

View attachment 67272487


510 is the yellow unit/1600 is the sporty red one

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1600 AKA Datsun Fairlady

Rexedgar said:

I agree that Apple plays it very close to the vest.

To the bolded: what examples can you show for “last very long,” and “do poorly in the market?”


Apple started in 1976 and has a market cap of over a Trillion dollars.

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How are Apple's computer sales? The overwhelming majority of people and businesses bought IBM and IBM compatibles, not Apples. Even though Apple was a superior product, until they replaced their Motorola CPU in 1990, everyone still bought IBMs or their compatibles. Apple has never had more than a very tiny percentage of the PC market, and that was because of their proprietary attitude.

If a business wants to make their product proprietary they certainly have that right. However, by doing so they have to realize that people, if given a choice of a non-proprietary product and a proprietary one, they are going to choose the non-proprietary product every time. So businesses have the right to make their products proprietary, and consumers have the right to buy another product. Personally, I don't see the problem. Both the consumer and the business have rights which are expressed in a free market. There is no need for government interference.

Rexedgar said:

I agree that Apple plays it very close to the vest.

To the bolded: what examples can you show for “last very long,” and “do poorly in the market?”


Apple started in 1976 and has a market cap of over a Trillion dollars.

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Better examples would be the Sony Betamax, Sony Minidisc and 3DO systems. All superior. All in the tech trash bin.

Fledermaus said:

1600 AKA Datsun Fairlady

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Col Maas may have had the 1500. It was kinda plain looking, SU carbs.

Glitch said:

How are Apple's computer sales? The overwhelming majority of people and businesses bought IBM and IBM compatibles, not Apples. Even though Apple was a superior product, until they replaced their Motorola CPU in 1990, everyone still bought IBMs or their compatibles. Apple has never had more than a very tiny percentage of the PC market, and that was because of their proprietary attitude.

If a business wants to make their product proprietary they certainly have that right. However, by doing so they have to realize that people, if given a choice of a non-proprietary product and a proprietary one, they are going to choose the non-proprietary product every time. So businesses have the right to make their products proprietary, and consumers have the right to buy another product. Personally, I don't see the problem. Both the consumer and the business have rights which are expressed in a free market. There is no need for government interference.

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I was just taking issue with your longevity and performance statements. I don’t keep up with IBM style computer, but they don’t seem to be real popular. I think I read a while back that Bill Gates came to IBM with a proposal and they sent him packing.

Another business whiff was that Coca-Cola decided not to buy Pepsi early in the game.


I think Apple was a poor example of the point you were trying to make.:shrug:

Modern tractor cabins should include wi-fi, wide panel monitors and adjustable shading window technology. Solar power generation technologies could maintain power for storage; and could be built-in, standard. As modular as is most cost effective at the time.

Junk bonds could pay for an upgrade in manufacturing that can lower costs and increase safety.

Fledermaus said:

Better examples would be the Sony Betamax, Sony Minidisc and 3DO systems. All superior. All in the tech trash bin.

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Sega Dreamcast is another example. They did very well in 1998 and 1999, and then the Playstation and XBox were released that did not use proprietary software and Sega Dreamcast went the way of the Dodo. The smart consumer, when given a choice, will always choose a non-proprietary product, even when the proprietary product is superior.

Glitch said:

Sega Dreamcast is another example. They did very well in 1998 and 1999, and then the Playstation and XBox were released that did not use proprietary software and Sega Dreamcast went the way of the Dodo. The smart consumer, when given a choice, will always choose a non-proprietary product, even when the proprietary product is superior.

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Another good example.

danielpalos said:

Modern tractor cabins should include wi-fi, wide panel monitors and adjustable shading window technology. Solar power generation technologies could maintain power for storage; and could be built-in, standard. As modular as is most cost effective at the time.

Junk bonds could pay for an upgrade in manufacturing that can lower costs and increase safety.

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You were almost logical until the last paragraph.

Rexedgar said:

I was just taking issue with your longevity and performance statements. I don’t keep up with IBM style computer, but they don’t seem to be real popular. I think I read a while back that Bill Gates came to IBM with a proposal and they sent him packing.

Another business whiff was that Coca-Cola decided not to buy Pepsi early in the game.


I think Apple was a poor example of the point you were trying to make.:shrug:

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You are running an IBM compatible computer now. Apple caved in during the 1990s and replaced their superior Motorola CPU with an Intel piece of crap. Apple still has its own O/S, but everything it runs on was based upon the IBM PC. The days of the Macintosh are long gone. The only thing that sustains Apple these days are its proprietary iPhones and iPads. Considering how proprietary Apple is towards its software, you are going to see booming markets for Samsung, Nokia, Google, Android, and Motorola smart phones.

I suppose that is one good thing a company that manufactures proprietary products accomplishes, they create competitors.

Glitch said:

You are running an IBM compatible computer now. Apple caved in during the 1990s and replaced their superior Motorola CPU with an Intel piece of crap. Apple still has its own O/S, but everything it runs on was based upon the IBM PC. The days of the Macintosh are long gone. The only thing that sustains Apple these days are its proprietary iPhones and iPads. Considering how proprietary Apple is towards its software, you are going to see booming markets for Samsung, Nokia, Google, Android, and Motorola smart phones.

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You keep changing the focus. Apple has been in business 44 years and is worth more than 1 trillion dollars, out.....

If any of you good people on here shy away from DIY on the modern cars because of diagnostics, there are literally hundreds of great scanners out there now that won't empty out your wallet.

I run a basic Foxwell scanner for my 2004 GMC 1500 with the 5.3 eng.

I think I paid about $75.00 (ish) for mine when I bought it..



It paid for itself in 15 minutes when troubleshot a couple of bad sensors.

Rexedgar said:

You keep changing the focus. Apple has been in business 44 years and is worth more than 1 trillion dollars, out.....

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I'm not changing the focus at all. Apple has been in business for 44 years, but only because they keep changing their product. Apple is no longer selling the products it made 44, 34, or even 24 years ago because those products were all superseded by non-proprietary products. Forcing Apple to either find another product to manufacture, or go out of business. That will always be the case with any business that uses proprietary practices.

Of course the exact opposite isn't always better either. In 1984 IBM published absolutely everything anyone wanted to know about DOS 1.0. They essentially made it public domain. Which was great for the software development industry, but not so good for IBM. IBM was unable to compete against the market and eventually lost to IBM compatibles. If you are going to make your product public domain, then you need to be certain that you are able to compete with the market or they will put you out of business.

A good business will find a balance between the two.

Hari Seldon said:

Brakes?

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Yes of course, my mistake.

CLAX1911 said:

I'm a freelance mechanic, that's been working on various things for about 20 years.

As a freelance mechanic I can pick and choose what I work on. Something I've noticed with automobiles are the German automobiles have sometimes punitively high parts replacement costs. Which of course cuts into my profit. So I just don't work on them. I figured the high costs were due to import prices.

So something I've stumbled upon while I was surfing the internet was this article about Farmers buying old tractors driving up the price. And it turns out they're paying 40 to $60,000 for tractors that are over two decades old because the new ones have been designed to where you can't repair them. Either they have some sort of software gateway or they have some form proprietary barrier, forcing you to go through the manufacturer.

Sometimes the manufacturers charge five figures for repairs.

So it got me thinking about right to repair and apparently this is a thing. I was watching a video from a guy who does repairs on cellular phones and computers and he was talking about Apple products. I had an iPod years ago and I was having a little difficulty with its function end basically Apple told me I have to replace it. After spending $300 on it and having it for just over a year. I was done with the product at that point. But apparently things have gotten worse.

So back to right to repair, and what this means. It is essentially legislation that forbids manufacturers from putting on needlessly complicated gateways and proprietary barriers for repairs. Is this a form of Monopoly? Is this a form of antitrust?

I'm not sure this seems to be new territory.

What are your thoughts?

Farmers Are Buying Up Old Tractors Because New Ones Are Pointlessly Complicated and Expensive - The Drive

Click to expand...

Too expensive to repair unsupported hi-tech and farm equipment so users are turning to lease arrangement for both. It's just like planned obsolescence. I remember when yrs ago the exact same replacement part for a Cadillac as for another GM product (Chevy) cost considerably more. Oh well. Lease is a better guarantee of future payment for the companies than is waiting to gouge the customer on replacement part.

CLAX1911 said:

No, the technology to digitize video exists. The technology to tow great weight with an electric vehicle isn't there, at least not yet.

The harder a motor has to work the more energy it needs, that's simple physics.

That being said there is nothing to suggest a motor using more energy under load will never exist.


A lithium ion battery still operates on a galvanic cell. The materials render a longer life but it's still limited.

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The recent developments I referred to don't have anything to do with changes to the laws of physics, only cost-benefit ratios and efficiency.
And as I said, educating you on it is above my pay grade, not because it's too complex but because of your luddite mentality.

RF667799 said:

I would figure farm tractors would be feasible before road tractors. Road tractors run up against the range problem. Heavy battery packs negatively impact payload. Payload isn't a problem with farm tractors. There is often weight added to them anyway, partly in order to increase their traction. The range problem of a farm tractor would be alleviated somewhat-as you said- by the fact it doesn't operate far from its home base. Add to that a couple extra battery packs charging in the barn and able to be shuttled quickly out to the field as needed, and you have much the same situation as the forklift scenario.
..

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Oh I totally agree and electric OTR trucks are still a ways off for long haul applications but I think we are beginning to see LTL markets warming up to the idea, if only because a local transportation line is somewhat similar to a farm tractor. The same truck that makes the same stops at the same loading docks and travels the same planned routes inside the same metro areas to the same customers is all easily plotted out by logistics.
And let's face it, not only would it be economical, it would be very clean because the bulk of vehicle pollution from these big rigs COMES FROM LTL trucks plodding along in stop and go traffic in city metro areas, especially when compared to long highway routes BETWEEN cities.

Waddy said:

All three Priuses in our family are driven by the ladies. They love them. I wouldn't be caught dead driving one. My daughter in law drives almost exclusively in the city, at or below 30 mph. Man is the gas mileage excellent on that. Outstanding. But at 255K miles I changed out the battery pack. Since the car was still in primo garage queen condition she wanted the $6000 new battery from Toyota, It was a piece of cake to change out, and I got a nice price for the old one from a rebuilder. The battery sits right behind the rear seat underneath. Pull a few wires and lift it out. Took me about a half hour.

Why I think her battery went out is she didn't drive fast enough often enough to completely charge the battery. So she was charging it, just not fully charging it. I told her to run that car on the highway a couple or three times a week until the battery is fully charged. Now, the circuitry on that Prius is supposed to turn on the engine for charging when it needs it, regardless of driving speed. And it does, but not until the battery is near bottom. And I don't think that system was fully topping off the battery. Batteries are particular about how they get treated.

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LOL, you still shouldn't have paid the six grand for the battery, sorry...but okay.
At 255K it didn't really owe you guys anything anyway. Cheers on the garage queen condition and appearances but at two hundred and fifty five thousand miles, if it were me I'd have thrown in a budget refurb or reman unit and call it good for another two or three years.
Reman units run about 1500 to 2000 bucks and you get a pretty decent life out of them for the most part.

Yes, I know about the battery switcheroo process, it's not all that scary as long as you respect the 200 volts dealio.
To be honest, it's changing and cleaning the battery vent fan that pisses me off, it's almost as labor intensive as swapping out the damn battery, at least on a Gen II model anyway.
I wish they'd have made the ventilation fan a modular pop-out/snap-in unit so people could clean the fan every six months with five minutes worth of DIY, like changing an engine air filter.
You shouldn't have to dismantle most of the rear interior just to clean a stupid squirrel cage fan!

The NiMH cells in the Prius battery pack don't like to regularly forced all the way up to 100% every single time you charge but 85-90% is golden, with some occasional one hundred percent charges spaced out after a run down to 45-50%.
As far as I know, the "ONE BAR" condition does NOT represent zero or even close to zero, it IS actually representing approximately 40-45%...that is the "artificial low" charge status indicated by "one bar".
And it is, as you probably know, based on voltage readings, not current.

Like your wife, I too was driving an awful lot in city traffic and like your wife, my driving did not always have enough long highway drives either.
But the battery has held up. I just hate the lackluster performance of the vehicle, especially when compared to my daughter's Chevy Volt, which is actually pretty fun to drive for what it is. It's not a Tesla but it has enough oomph "to get out of its own way".

My experience with NiMH and Li-Ion batteries is not from the automotive circles but instead from my career as a director of photography.
I started out in 1983 with a mix of gel cell lead acid and Ni-Cad battery packs and "battery belts" for my camera gear, then graduated to Nickel-Metal Hydride, then moved into Lithium-Ion and we've all "been friends" all along and I've learned the idiosyncracies of each system.

And I've had to train my crew in the proper care and feeding of these batteries as well, because as you said, if they aren't maintained and charged properly, the life expectancy drops.

But seriously, I think the ladies in your fam did okay because you did get 255 thousand miles out of that pack, which is pretty good.
Most Prius taxicabs will get 250-350 thousand miles out of one before swapping them out.
And from what I can gather, those taxi fleets are not buying the six thousand dollar OEM units either, because generally speaking after the second battery pack reaches the end of useful life, so has the taxicab.

You guys did pretty well. Maybe they could have squeezed another fifty thousand out of it, maybe not, but 255K is nothing to be ashamed about!

RetiredUSN said:

Every engine is a different animal, even if it's built identical to 100,000 others.

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Yes and no...that is much more true when talking about the engine in a Nissan Skyliner than it is for the engine in a Toyota Camry, or the engine in a Chrysler Pacifica or a Ford F150.

In the old days of the American car market, prior to the Japanese "invasion" (LOL) it was definitely more the case as you say, because the manufacturers expected the average buyer would be getting rid of the thing in three years anyway.
Hot rodders who built or rebuilt their engines were "balancing and blueprinting" their motors and that was a big deal.
Nowadays, with efficiency and clean operation being so important, most if not all modern automotive engines ARE balanced and blueprinted during the assembly process, maybe not quite as strict as "Otto the Hot Rodder" but pretty close.

These are not Fairbanks-Morse 10 cylinder opposed fire tugboat engines.

PS: By the way, if you talk, as I have suspected, to a lot of old bikers, they will tell you some amusing stories about the clearances in the old Harley engines. Jesus H. Briggs and Stratton!! Talk about loose!!

Waddy said:

Yes, a vehicle only needs to meet the smog requirement of their year of production, but after so many years of gunk in that intake it might not even meet that standard. Maybe a condition of buying it is a successful smog test. If it won't pass, look at the codes, and offer a lower price for the truck, as you will need to fix whatever tripped those codes.

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Ah well, moot point because Freddy the owner sold it this morning for 4100 bucks, almost his original asking price of 4500.
I've seen old Merc OM617 diesel taxi engines with a half million miles on them and they weren't especially gunked up, just old and a little tired and loose.
I suspect the little four banger diesel on that little truck probably ran pretty well as the seller said that it only had about 155 thousand miles on it.
You know what they say...155 thousand is "just broken in" :lamo

And it's really not far from the truth!

Checkerboard Strangler said:

The recent developments I referred to don't have anything to do with changes to the laws of physics, only cost-benefit ratios and efficiency.

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the limitations are due to laws of physics.

And as I said, educating you on it is above my pay grade, not because it's too complex but because of your luddite mentality.

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seems like I could educate you on it. Do you know why an electric motor needs more energy to produce more torque?

Further, I'm not opposed to New technology it just isn't there yet.

Needing more development isn't opposing. Learn the meeting of words please

Checkerboard Strangler said:

Yes and no...that is much more true when talking about the engine in a Nissan Skyliner than it is for the engine in a Toyota Camry, or the engine in a Chrysler Pacifica or a Ford F150.

In the old days of the American car market, prior to the Japanese "invasion" (LOL) it was definitely more the case as you say, because the manufacturers expected the average buyer would be getting rid of the thing in three years anyway.
Hot rodders who built or rebuilt their engines were "balancing and blueprinting" their motors and that was a big deal.
Nowadays, with efficiency and clean operation being so important, most if not all modern automotive engines ARE balanced and blueprinted during the assembly process, maybe not quite as strict as "Otto the Hot Rodder" but pretty close.

These are not Fairbanks-Morse 10 cylinder opposed fire tugboat engines.

PS: By the way, if you talk, as I have suspected, to a lot of old bikers, they will tell you some amusing stories about the clearances in the old Harley engines. Jesus H. Briggs and Stratton!! Talk about loose!!

Click to expand...

Quality control varies from part to part in every single engine, even with today's advanced technology,

You can have a batch of rings that vary in metallurgy from the last batch of rings which will affect a certain amount of engines in any engine family.