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Back when the average truck farms had fields in the range of 80 acres each. Equipment also averaged in the 100 to 200 drawbar horsepower range you didn't need GPS to tell you where you were in the field or satellite imagery to spot low yield spots. the equipment was in general repairable by folks who had a good mechanical aptitude IE the farmer or his sons & daughters. the thought of entering into a contract where they needed to pay $$$$$$ each year to maintain their equipment was unheard of. the smarter farmers knew about crop rotation to preserve the productivity of the land without the need of some agronomist coming out and taking soil samples to what nutrients and minerals were lacking in their soils.
But as we say the world moved on. Demands for higher and higher yields stressing the soil to the point of no return without the interjection of more and more artificial means, Equipment began to increase in size requiring the fields to be combined into ever larger tracts of land because it was not feasible economically to even turn the huge equipment around in smaller fields due to the amount of end row land required. I have a friend in Minnesota whose family farms now have fields in the 1000's of acre range which are miles and miles long and wide some of their equipment might cost upwards of 2 to 5 million dollars per piece and only get used 2 months at a time once or twice a year the rest of the time it is parked inside of a climate controlled building not just a shed with a roof and wind walls to prevent exposure to snow and the ultraviolet rays of the summer sun. They don't own just 1 or 2 of anything they own or rather they pay yearly for the privilege of using and storing whole fleets of equipment. During planting or harvesting seasons breakdowns are not an option. He or rather his family out of shear necessity must employ a staff of certified well qualified repair persons since taking their equipment back to a dealer would be not only cost prohibitive completely impossible in some cases as some of the equipment would require a tear down into several smaller assemblies just to transport it then be hauled to a port and shipped to places like Sweden where it was made.
He is the exception in the go big or go home class of farmers. Folks like my cousins family farms up in Colorado where they only have 12,000 acres can't afford to lease or own large fleets of every type of equipment for their operation so Where Chris's family may own 10, 20 or more of one type machine Gary might only have 3 or 4 or possibly only 1 and have to hire a lot of their tillage and harvesting done. When 1 of Gary's combines breaks down he is at the mercy of you guessed it John deere which in itself wouldn't be all that bad providing his was the only equipment to ever need repairs.
Even if a large dealership has a sizeable staff of repair persons those 2 times a year which are the most critical to not only the farmers but every person who depends on produce of food stuffs being readily available on the supermarket shelves depend on the dealerships ability to preform the repairs quickly, but what happens when they are overwhelmed with simple breakdowns? Things that the farmers could diagnose themselves then determine if the equipment should be sent in or a mobile repairman be called out. This is what would make the most sense to me. The same should go for cars trucks and household appliances in my opinion.
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Originally Posted by Jon
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