Once, it broke down, and I was astonished to see that there are forums dedicated to this tractor. If I remember correctly, it was a problem with the fuel line that is rather common, and we managed to fix it thanks to these communities.

As I was researching it, I read stories of MF135s found abandoned in a ditch and starting immediately again. A robustness that makes this and other models popular in Africa...

I also love driving it, apart from the fact the hydraulics are somewhat off, so the front/rear lift won't ever stay in position.

When I started out, 13ish or so, I had to stand on the clutch to get it down.

If you gave it enough beans and dropped the clutch it'll pop a wheelie! (Don't tell my grandpa)

It came in handy living in the country, when occasionally someone would get bogged down on a dirt road, and this thing would come to the rescue.

And it still works.

Things were made different back then.

I looked up the manual, you got everything you need to repair it. Maintenance is extremely easy. Even have electric schema.

Now my BMW, I looked into the manual how to change a light. It said to go to the dealer lol.

Fuck the modern car / tractor / tools. I blame the people for that, we went from customer that demanded to be able to repair their stuff to people who are now mechanically illiterate. I'm not sure they would even know how to replace a tire on their Tesla :)

That's why manufacturer have all the latitude to do what they do. And that's why it didn't go very far with farmers.

Great memories.

These low-tech tractors could become a hot bed for open source experimentation. Nothing stopping someone from sticking a tablet on the dash. You could run GPS harvesting optimization software or some webthing locally. Could be cloud or clever DiY farmers could run their farm off a local instance on a small machine using a WiFi AP atop the barn or whatever.

What is a shisha-pipe?

The problem is computers and software enable lock-in, because of their flexibility and communications capability. Get rid of them, and you make lock-in much more difficult (or even impossible if you use "standard" parts).

Also, computers and software are complex, and that complexity is not physically visible. If you want something you can completely understand, it's probably a good choice to simplify by cutting them out completely.

So consumers DO want all-touchscreen disposable cars like Tesla - it's similar to how disposable phones had replaced phones with removable batteries(even among IP rated phones). Wallets vote strongly against consumers.

Good that at least there wasn't much gear changing, pick one for task and just use it

It's amazing we let it slip this far. Even cars from a decade or so ago feel much more repairable. I bought an EV and I haven't even seen the motor yet, because I'm going to have to dismantle a bunch of plastic-clipped stuff to remove the frunk, and I've broken enough brittle tabs for one lifetime. God forbid they'd just use actual metal fasteners for this stuff.

But the tractor does.

Edit: specifically thinking of https://comma.ai/

It's so bad the FTC and states had to sue Deere over just the right to repair. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/01/...

So a prerequisite might involve fixing the patent system...

The marketing excuse for the tech might be features or efficiency, but the reason for the tech is lock-in and minimising product lifetime.

The days when manufacturers had friendly, cooperative relationships with their customers are long gone :( Can we bring them back? I hope so, but am not hopeful.

Personally I have a 2019 Mazda 3 which has camera vision all around, radar cruise control and heated seats but no lane assist bumping you around or a cellular connection relaying any information.

The only anti feature it has is that stupid idle stop, but that’s easy to permanently disable. It also has car play but doesn’t have a touch screen.

Anyway I’m not saying you should get this car specially but there are cars out there that are like what you want.

I recently did a lawn tractor conversion from gas to electric and what I got was in my opinion significantly better and more reliable than a commercial option at 20% of the price but it is limited to 4mph. Scaling it to 5 would require a lot of custom fabrication and a much more expensive drive motor. Once this tech is significantly better and cheaper to the point of being a commodity it will be a different story. For now it just isn’t.

I'd teach someone to drive it and say, "now push down on the clutch". They they would heave and struggle, then eventually succeed and look victorious. I'd say, "well done, it is now half way down! But that's all you need for now!"

EDIT: To fully explain: It has a two-stage clutch. You half-press it and it disconnects the wheels from the engine. If you fully depress it all the way to the floor, it additionally disconnects the power-take-off shaft (PTO) from the engine. The PTO shaft is a spindle on the back of the tractor which drives things like your flail mower, wood chipper, etc.

EDIT 2: Edit 1 was for the general audience, not the parent commenter ;-)

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S63Cy64p2lQ

[1] https://wiki.opensourceecology.org/wiki/Main_Page

It went a bit too far, optimum would be modern enough to have drive by wire but with open ECU and documentation

This needs to be solved at government level with right to repair laws and requirement for open standards instead of believing in magic of "free market".

---------------

Tractors aren't cars. It isn't merely inconvenient if they are unavailable at crucial times, so ease of repair is critical. Farmers have always done as much of their own maintenance as possible. John Deere has spent a lot of time taking away the reliability and ease of repair that farmers need in order to give them "advanced" features they don't need.

Farmers who want advanced capabilities might now look to build them on top of no-tech tractors with open-source solutions rather than trusting John Deere again. That way, if the "would be nice" tech has problems they can rip it off and get the harvest in without it.

Not sure how much appetite there is for that but half price + 5 grand in off the shelf electronics seems like something margin sensitive farmers would do.

This tractor will last 50 years (and maybe more). Your grandchildren will be able to still use it. That longevity is the primary reason farmers would be super interested in this.

Some jobs (like mucking a barn for example) don't require a high-tech tractor. Sometimes you just need a workhorse that you can trust will start, run and do the job. Every single time. I still see farmers running old minneapolis-moline tractors from 100 years ago!

Cheap, fast enough, practical, goofey looking.

And with all the distracted drivers looking into their phones while driving, I want more and more cars to get at least emergency breaking systems.

as far as auto mation goes, thats how implements used to work. it was a tracter/thresher/combine. then a bale counter is slapped on then maybe row sighting or guidance, etc.

if your really snazzy, the implement is actually mapping the soil for moisture, or rough composistion and holding data to use in reformulating or notating your current cultural plans, i.e. supplemental spot feeding and irrigation.

actual agricultural needs, not just fluff.

They're phenomenal little machines that can do 99% of what you need. It blows my mind that for years, Grandpa farmed with a little Ford smaller than the 175. I can't imagine planting with that thing. The ww2 generation really were tough as nails.

It is no harder than doing it with an ECU, except that you need to install a servo or speed governor with hand tools, instead of fiddling with ECU code.

These governors are basically mechanical analog computers which use the inertia of flyweights, springs, and some very clever linkages to do their thing.

I have certainly driven cars with lighter and heavier clutches (I live in EU, automatics weren't popular until recently and are still far from ubiquitous) but I couldn't tell you why every model just doesn't get a light clutch for comfort. A diesel Subaru I drove had a particularly heavy clutch as I recall, so at stop lights I would pop into neutral instead of holding the clutch down for an extended period.

... and kills/maims anyone with lose clothing trying to step over it!

Since then I always pop into neutral when standing at a traffic light. It is interesting how many people in manual driving cultures think there would be no wear and tear if they press the pedal down completely.

Of course there is, as there has to be a force translating connection between rotating parts and parts of the release mechanism which cannot rotate. Only when the pedal is left alone, the release bearing disconnects from the rotating clutch.

Large car manufactures will lobby to avoid competition of barebones, cheap cars.

https://www.swarmfarm.com/technology/

- West Australian grain farmer (4,500 hectares, barley, grains) reviews a fully automated driverless swarm bot in boom spray configuration:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljEKN7CsjnM

Modern machines may use complex mechanical linkages to make the clutch easy to pull apart but still maintain a firm contact, but that also means higher cost and fragility. Or they use pneumatics or hydraulics to assist, sorta like power steering.

I mowed using a Farmall H on a family farm when I was about 12 y/o. I don't remember ever having deadly serious conversations with family members up to that point in my life. All four grandparents, aunts and uncles-- it seemed like everybody-- sat me down, looked me dead in the eye, and told me sternly and bluntly "you turn off the PTO and see the shaft isn't turning before you get off the tractor. Every. Time."

All of them knew somebody who lost an arm or leg or got killed when they got pulled into a PTO.

That was probably the first time I'd ever been given the opportunity to operate a machine that would fucking kill me if I shirked on respecting it. I will never forget the tone of that communication.

But there's more to agtech than driving a tractor around, a lot of what these big integrated systems do (at the high end) is very data driven -- determining where and how to plant, irrigate, fertilize, etc. There's a lot of integration work beyond just making the tractor drive.

This is the whole reason why middle class is dying and power and wealth are being consolidated amongst the rich.

The thing is, your reputation will get out there. Folks will want to work with you because of who you are; it'll be profitable (in many ways) even if it isn't a 100-year dynasty.

You can do a lot of things if you don't care about the spirit of the law and your negative externalities.

That’s the kind of MBA speak a giant corporate food production facility loves to hear, but not a farmer.

The effect of this is obvious and felt in the end product.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6_9_HHLOSY

(Not for sale yet though.)

This is so cool, shame that Freevalve never seemed to go anywhere.

I liked that it had the dual speed walk mode. Don't want to be creeping around the yard.

It looks like magic because it works like magic. Surprisingly it is also possible to believe in the magic of "government intervention" though it looks less like magic and more like unintended consequences.

Well, sure. Maintenance is an off-season job. Its that or sit on the couch watching TV, so you may as well be in the shop getting equipment ready. Even if it takes you longer than an experienced tech, does it really matter? Not really. The winters are long.

Repairs are a different story. When things break, you need it fixed now. Wasting a day trying to figure out how to separate complex, seized parts from each other isn't time you have. You're going to be hiring a mechanic who has done it a million times before.

Of course, more important than who does the work is part availability. Having the human capacity to get something fixed means nothing if you cannot also get the parts you need. I've certainly been caught more than once needing to wait a week on a part, which is not a fun place to be. And this is where John Deere has focused their business: Doing more to keep parts available near to where the farmers are, so that you can get parts exactly when you need them. This is, above all else, why John Deere is the market leader.

> Farmers who want advanced capabilities might now look to build them on top of no-tech tractors with open-source solutions

I have been going down this road and am starting to regret it a bit. The saving grace is that I have found enjoyment in building a system of my own. But if I found it to be a chore, at this point I'd have deep remorse that I didn't just pay someone like John Deere for a fully delivered, highly polished solution. I know the HN crowd tends towards the DIY, but, having actual experience here, I don't see this happening outside of the small subset of farmers who find fun in it. It is a decent hobby for those so inclined, but from a purely commercial perspective the time and effort can be better put to use elsewhere.

There's lots of other electronics in most modern vehicles, but the public manufacturer rationales for electronic lockdowns almost always point back to emissions concerns because they're so defensible. How do you separate them?

> BRING YOUR OWN TECH

> Bring the apps you know and love to create the experience you want. Instead of a bulky, distracting, and quickly outdated infotainment system, a Slate can come with something simpler: a smartly designed mount that fits a phone or tablet and a holder for a portable Bluetooth speaker. Heating and air conditioning are included, no need to bring your own fan.

> Your Slate will age gracefully, because it’ll always have the latest tech—yours.

I'm unclear whether you're stating the current state of affairs, or arguing that such safety features cannot exist without this lock in.

If it's the latter, you may have missed the point. GP was clear they want modern safety and powertrain, just without the tracking.

None of the safety features you mention require the manufacturer to harvest and sell personal data — that's a separate choice OEMs have made, not a technical prerequisite.

My understanding of the aviation market is that there are some bargains to be had with planes that are old but still very servicable. But if you are flying longer distances regularly, you kind of gravitate towards the more expensive ones. Because they go faster, use less fuel, are more comfortable, have more useful load, etc.

The point of a tractor is that is used to do useful work by farmers who earn their living working these things hard. If they break down, work stops until that can be fixed. The value of being able to fix these machines yourself is that you get them back in action quickly. But the value of a newer one is that it presumably wouldn't need a lot of fixing to begin with. And maximizing power while minimizing fuel usage means the job gets done quicker and at a lower cost. And that's what modern manufacturers sell of course.

IMHO, electric is going to revolutionize farming. Diesel is expensive (a lot more lately). And farmers burn a lot of it. Electric motors are small, reliable, quiet, etc. They have loads of torque. And if you are a farmer, you have plenty of space to harvest your own electricity with solar panels and maybe a wind mill and some batteries. There is a growing amount of high end stuff available in this space but also very affordable low end stuff. And this technology can be very simple and tinker friendly. Buy some old EV batteries wire them up and you can make anything with wheels move. Including really old tractors, pickup trucks, etc. Anything from the largest mining trucks to the smallest lawn mower can already be powered by batteries. And everything in between. With battery cost dropping, there are very few obstacles that prevent adoption left. Mostly import tariffs in the US.

Rural kids are put into situations where they are expected to rely fully on themselves, with life-or-death consequences, from a young age. When your pre-teen is driving a machine on their own that could easily kill them or those around them, giving them a .22 rifle is just... normal. It's not at all the same situation as a kid the same age who lives in an apartment and who may have never been in a place where no one would be close enough to hear them if they screamed for help.

I can't wrap my head around the idea that a large number of people who live in cities seem to want to extend childhood through age 25. My daughters are 12 and 17, and between them have over fifty animals directly depending on them for survival. It's just... foreign.

How difficult is this to implement outside of big ag-tech? I feel that a community of experienced farmers and programmers (or programmer-farmers) could tackle this.

A tractor is a big thing to have rolling around unsupervised. I would want a lot of safeguards. Blindly going from one GPS point to another sounds like a nightmare.

But I could be wrong. I can't know but I'm pretty sure the GP was writing tongue in cheek. As in mocking the business strategies that have been eroding the engines of our economy.

Always better short and long term to bring and maintain your own smarts.

It's the regulations (or lack thereof) that allow touchscreens in cars as they are that should be the target of ire. Reverse camera regulations or not, the current state of touchscreen car rubbish was inevitable without the existence and enforcement of regulations addressing it.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv5QwgQUMGY

I get there's been plenty of vaporware cars in the past but by all signs Slate is making real progress towards delivering actual vehicles.

Other than ~30min it takes to teach an employee to drive manual it doesn't do anything worse than the modern ones it works alongside and it does a handful of minor things much better by virtue of predating OSHA.

Farmers are just pissed they lose the ability to repair the vehicle easily or get stuck with monthly subscription because tractor company has changed the terms and you are praying they don't change it further.

I would have expected policy to be pragmatic here, with (relatively) relaxed emissions requirements, since an affordable and reliable food supply is in the national interest? Sounds like that's not the case

IF we wanted to do it properly, I'd imagine we'd have zero mandatory locks on ECU, just a little closed down black box with sensor installed in relatively tamper-proof way (of course there will always be one, the target is for 90% of people to not bother), logging away and maybe sending check engine light if it detects wrong AFR for too long.

Then you just check that on yearly MOT + any signs of tampering. Then owner is free to tune the engine as they want, provided the exhaust is still within the norms for most of the time.

Mandate common interfaces and open hardware. I shouldn't have to buy a $10k dongle to sniff codes. I certainly shouldn't have to buy a different one for each manufacturer.

With a $20 CAN transceiver, documentation and/or config files from the manufacturer, and a bit of Python or something, you could absolutely bench test those electronic injectors. You might even be able to pick your injection events and adjust the metering, supporting the equipment as it ages. I'd love to see Ursa Ag put in a Megasquirt engine controller [1] or Proteus [2] or similar. You can run TunerStudio on a Raspberry Pi and show it on a touchscreen on the dash.

It's possible to build user-friendly, inexpensive and open engine and vehicle controls. You don't need to have zero electronics to not have locked-down proprietary electronics, you just need to build the electronics in the right way.

[1] https://diyautotune.com/products/ms3357-c?_pos=2&_fid=69f494...

[2] https://rusefi.com/index.html#proteus

If a tractor with a clean-burning, efficient $7500k engine could be purchased and were designed around the theory that, in 20 years or so, the owner could reasonably quickly replace the entire engine (with a first-party or aftermarket solution), would that be a good solution?

The common tech that has solved these problems nicely (IMO) is network transceivers: SFP and similar modules are built according to multi-source agreements. They contain all kinds of exotic tech, and they are not intended to be serviced at all, but (unless your switch or NIC has an utterly stupid lockout) you can pull it out and replace it with an equivalent part from a different vendor in seconds, and those parts can be unbelievably inexpensive considering what’s in them. (Single-mode bidirectional 1Gbps transceivers are $11 or less, retail, in qty 2. This is INSANE compared the the first time I lit up a 1Gbps SMF link. To be fair, this particular tech may require one to replace both ends if one fails, but if you can spare a second fiber, the fully IEEE-spec-compliant interoperable ones are even less expensive.)

- My vehicle has a backup camera with a screen, but has physical buttons for all controls (A/C, audio system). There's no reason cars can't have both.

Most Toyotas I've seen have a screen for the backup camera and the carplay/music/gps console, but everything else is still knobs and buttons.

This is true on both my 2013 and 2026 Toyotas.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_Fortwo

However one major sticking point is that (often.. maybe always?) the engine block casting is actually a structural component of the tractor "frame". Unlike e.g. a truck that has its driveline mounted between frame rails, a tractor's "frame" is its driveline . So this might add quite a bit of complexity and cost.

EDIT: I did have some nozzles bored out a little bit once by a shop with EDM equipment. Terrible results, not worth it.

I tried a 2025 Ford Maverick for a year before I traded it for the Tacoma. All the AC/Heat/Etc controls were on the screen. Couldn't stand it. Put me off of ever considering a new Ford again.

3 out of 5, which I think merely qualifies it as "average"

> A UGV (Unmanned Ground Vehicle) is a robotic vehicle that operates on the ground without a human driver onboard.

I lived on a farm for a year as a young kid (farmer rented a couple of trailers on his land). I remember one day I was hanging around the hog pen watching the giant hogs mill about, probably contemplating trying to pet one. Mr Austin came by and sternly told me to not to reach through the fencing, then knelt down and showed me his ear, which was missing a big chunk.

come to the city, farm boy, and we'll give you a corner you can sling the brown from and we see how you do. we find something fo yo daughters to do too*

*i have absolutely no street smarts, country or city, but I do watch Law & Order and know how to pound a nail and know what to grease the maitre d' to get into the hottest restaurants in town. and beyond that i got friends, some of these guys know people who know people, just sayin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljEKN7CsjnM

Specifically, 10 feet by 20 feet directly behind the vehicle. I'm actually curious how this could be achieved with only mirrors. That's a pretty big swath for anything with a viewpoint where the driver is sitting.

> My vehicle has a backup camera with a screen

Early implementations just used a screen in the rearview mirror. No need for any kind of infotainment screen.

There is a value in safety regulation but the incentives as legislated have led to negative results. It needs to be fixed or repealed. Not sure there's a clean solution here.

Wish I could move; I could sell this overpriced place and almost retire.... not under my control

The bigger agcorps have tones of integration.

The machine, from tractor to combine and everything in between often feeds data together to produce a holistic understanding.

Things like - How much fuel was used - Where your tractors and sprayers drove - Soil samples and content - How and where every bit of chemical and fertilizer was applied - What weather hit your field - How much and and the moisture content of every bit of the field you harvested

It goes on an on.

I just don't think you're going to effectively compete with big agtech by putting a bunch of parts in a box, shaking it, and hoping you end up with a beautifully integrated solution. Integration hell is the reason big commercial firms dominate when it comes to large integrated systems.

Like, the signals seem pretty clear to me. The spirit of the regulations is that these shouldn't be produced and put into operation anymore. The company is doing it anyway.

Yes. But maybe not a 1:1 of current petroleum-powered equipment with an equivalent electric one? Say, crop dusting aircraft are not being replaced by electric powered crop dusting aircraft, but by (electric powered) crop dusting drones.

Could something similar happen for, say, tractors? A tractor is of course an extremely versatile tool, and as long as there's a human driving it there's a tendency towards ever bigger tractors in order to minimize labor/ha. But big tractors are already a bit too big and expensive for many not-huge farms, ground compaction is a problem with large weight etc. Could we see these replaced by a fleet of electrical drones (drones as in autonomous, not necessarily flying) rather than "just" an electrical tractor? Of course, there's a certain minimum power required to pull a plow etc., so maybe not? Of course, autonomous fleets etc. goes a bit against the idea of DIY-fixable. Or does it? A different skill-set than wrenching on an old tractor, sure.

Furthermore, when have sanctions achieved anything other than suffering for the people?

Plus, I'm pretty sure that some sanctions are very convenient for some parties on this side of the game.

Sometimes. Above 26HP tractors do have to have emissions controls like diesel particulate filters now. Below that they don't.

It's not even close to that easy though is it? I've wanted to convert a car to an EV and it seems really complex.

Two stroke engines are pretty terrible in terms of unburned hydrocarbons and are disgusting for local air quality, which is why I'm glad they're being phased out in many areas.

I'd expect these tractors with I6 diesel engines to run pretty efficiently. I'd bet that the CO2 emissions from tractors are tiny in comparison from the emissions from trucks, fertiliser, and transporting the food.

They're still pushing the boundary today. The Ring Superbowl ad where they announced they're watching you (but they said "your dog") 24/7 apparently got a lot of people to quit Ring, and you know they're crunching the numbers to see if the retention rate is worth the extra surveillance collection.

It's there when the truck is in reverse and otherwise just a normal mirror.

Early 2010s actually seems like a sweet spot for a lot of automotive tech - it's decent enough, but "mobile" wasn't really a thing yet, and bandwidth was expensive, so there's no assumption that everything should be an app phoning home yet (iPhone was still brand new).

I would still guess that lawnmowers produce more emissions overall, given that there are so many more mowers than tractors. But they get used less often than tractors, so who knows? Either way, I agree with your thinking process, that the most economical way to reduce overall emissions is to focus on what are actually producing the bulk of emissions.

I don't know how much better cars and trucks can get, and for mowers maybe electric is the answer. Mine is gas-powered, and I know it runs rich. I would love to come inside after mowing and not smell like fuel, so I'm in favor of better emissions controls on mowers.

EVs have less parts. There are some challenges with diagnostics for things like battery management systems. And given the high voltages, it helps if you know what you are doing with electrical systems.

However, financiers played an indisputable role in the current state of economic wealth in today's world.

The future for tools is electric 100%.

they may have a place in the distant future but in 2026, aint no way.