I was referring to why Deere owners have publicly stated they want electronic access. Sure some want to remove pollution equipment - they don't realize what problems they will be getting into by doing it but it's their choice. They state that if their tractor breaks down, they want access to software to repair without waiting for, or paying the cost of, a dealer mechanic. Sure there are hackers who can break in and tweak software trying to defeat - I realize that. I was addressing the owners stated intent.
Companies, and I will refer to Caterpillar, make retrofit kits for used Tier 4 equipment going into lesser regulated countries. Part of this involves flashing in new engine software but other material changes are required. I can't remember the list, but it had to be done because so much of America's used equipment goes to third world countries. More so Japan where when they implement a emissions upgrade, customers have a limited time to replace their fleet. Even places like the UAE use their machines only a couple years, sow 4,000 hours, then peddle them off to the Iranians or African countries. All these machines need to have modifications available to make them work in lesser regulated countries or the customers looking for new product wold be locked out of their major channel for selling.
The major problem they will encounter is due to the Common Rail System. Fuel must be extremely clean in these high pressure systems. My Kubota L5740 has a low pressure indirect injection not too far from the system we had on our first diesel on the farm, a 1939 TD-6 International. That is how ancient those systems were. In fact my L5740 smokes just about as bad as that TD-6 even though the L5740 is Tier 4 interim. I believe the top possible injection pressure on my M135GX is 23,000 psi. A fine particle of dirt flowing through the system at that pressure causes much more damage than one at 1,400 psi.
I work with a lot of fellow farmers now that I am retired and have yet to find one on our area who wants to dump all their emissions equipment. They had qualms about buying, but every one has been pleased with their purchase. Now that us still a small segment of the population and in our area, nobody has tractors over 250 HP like the tractor cited. Maybe Deere has screwed up. Owners have been pleased with fuel economy, power, torque backup, and the like. They have not been pleased with the list price but everyone has been able to get tremendous discounts unheard of a few years back. 22% off lust us not unusual. But we find the same thing when we try to buy new equipment that does not have an engine. Our large round baler - at the end of last season we planned it to be gone but at this year's price, it got a rebuild instead. That is serious because it is one critical machine for which we do not have a backup. We were also going to get a new sprayer but the price increase for new blew us away so we found a used one we could rebuild. So the price factor - yes, it is there, but emissions is not the sole driver. The economy that crashed in 2007 - 2008 was such a drag on prices companies are now trying to recover.
