John Deere's Pro Service works in a demo, but farmers aren't buying in

A two-minute tractor fix

A WIRED journalist with no mechanical training recently repaired a John Deere tractor using nothing but a laptop and the company's own software. The demonstration took place at John Deere's office in Santa Clara, California, with a 5130ML tractor whose water-in-fuel sensor had been disconnected. Connected to the machine by cable, the software flagged the fault, and when the reporter typed in a question it pulled up instructions and manual images matched to the tractor's serial number. Reconnecting two dangling wires cleared the alert within minutes.

The session was led by Jahmy Hindman, John Deere's senior vice president and chief technology officer, who has spent 30 years at the company. He described the software as owner-friendly, saying that was always the company's intent — a claim many farmers would contest, according to WIRED.

What Pro Service does

The product on display was Operations Center Pro Service, introduced in 2025. Subscriptions start at $195 per year for a single machine. Access to every machine in John Deere's fleet, aimed at larger operations and independent repair shops, starts at $4,995 per year, with agricultural and turf access priced at $5,995 per year.

The software connects to equipment over Wi-Fi or cable, diagnoses problems using the machine's serial number, and guides owners through fixes. It can be downloaded for offline use, keeps a history of software updates on each machine, and links directly to parts in John Deere's store. The company has also added an AI chatbot called JD to help owners find component information, though the WIRED reporter did not test that version.

Hindman framed the tool as an answer to rising complexity, noting that some tractors carry more than 50 electronic controllers. Kelli Sullivan, a group product manager at John Deere who ran the demo, said owners control their data and can choose to share it with the company, an independent shop, or no one.

Adoption remains thin. A year after launch, John Deere says the service has about 1,000 daily users — a small number set against the roughly 1.8 million farms in the US. Sullivan said the company is simply "trying to get the word out."

A decade of repair friction

John Deere is the largest agricultural machine maker in the US, and its equipment is now packed with controllers, sensors and 4G connections, with some models able to operate autonomously. Those systems sit behind digital locks that have required dealer-sanctioned approval to access, which blocks owners from adjusting or replacing parts with aftermarket alternatives. That has made the company a central target of the right-to-repair movement.

Legal pressure has followed. In April, John Deere agreed to a $99 million settlement reimbursing equipment owners for burdensome repair costs. In July, it settled a separate suit brought by the US Federal Trade Commission requiring it to make products more repairable. The company admitted no wrongdoing in either case, and both settlements await a judge's final ruling. Repair advocates told WIRED the measures fall short, both financially and as levers to change the company's behavior.

Farmers remain unconvinced

Jared Wilson, a Missouri farmer who grows corn and soybeans across 3,000 acres, is a named plaintiff in the $99 million lawsuit and has called that payout "fundamentally flawed." He does not use Pro Service and knows nobody who does. In his view, the software handles simple jobs well, but owners facing three or four diagnostic codes at once get no help deciding where to start.

Wilson said the farmers he knows tend to run cracked versions of John Deere's software found on gray markets rather than pay the company. He doubts the customer version matches the dealer version for capability, though Hindman says the software is identical across both. Another concern is John Deere's product improvement plans, which alert owners to known machine problems only after the company has gathered information suggesting an issue — leaving owners reliant on the manufacturer's own data collection.

In Wilson's assessment, it took a class action and FTC action to get this far, and he does not believe the current offering delivers everything repair advocates have asked for.

Why it matters

The story captures the current state of right-to-repair in agriculture. John Deere has shipped a genuinely capable diagnostic tool, but it arrived under legal pressure, costs money on top of expensive machines, and has reached only a sliver of its potential audience. If farmers keep choosing cracked software over an official subscription, the problem is not just awareness — it is trust over data, pricing and parity with dealer tools. With two settlements still awaiting final approval, how Deere's self-repair program evolves will signal whether corporate-run repair platforms can satisfy the movement, or whether binding regulation remains the only path. The outcome matters beyond farming, since it sets a template for other locked-down industries facing similar demands.