> Can you legally fix your car or your older tractor? Has that always been true? You can't legally fix these machines because the manufacturer says so. That's new(ish) and a power (money) grab.
Contracts that limit your ability to do things are very common.
If you buy a pure bred dog, you will typically be required to sign a contract that requires you to not breed it and to get it neutered after a certain period of time. If for some reason you need to give it up, you will have to return it to the breeder.
If you buy a movie on DVD, you can enjoy it in your home, but you can't set up an impromptu theater by projecting the movie on the side of a building.
The import thing, was the customer provided notice of this restriction at or before the time of sale. It sounds like the answer to this question is: yes.
You may be tempted to to claim some sort of power imbalance, which I don't buy in the general case, but in this particular case it is even less relevant. Large farms that use automated machinery costing many hundreds of thousands of dollars is the very definition of sophisticated customer, capable of hiring legal help and evaluating options.
I don't know about tractors, but there's nothing legally preventing you from fixing your car. The problem is technical: the diagnostic tools may only be available to authorized dealers/repairpeople.
That said, despite all the crying about people not being able to work on cars any more, I just don't see it. I change my own oil on my 2015 Mazda, and I can easily change other parts on it too. Maybe there's certain brands that intentionally throw up roadblocks? But I don't see it with mainstream Japanese brands; these cars are very easy to work on.
Hiring legal help and evaluating options doesn't matter when you don't have options.
Contracts are laws, the people who write them create laws to favor themselves, and the people who don't have leverage to negotiate the contracts are subject to those laws without any meaningful representation.
Contracts that limit your ability to do things are very common.
If you buy a pure bred dog, you will typically be required to sign a contract that requires you to not breed it and to get it neutered after a certain period of time. If for some reason you need to give it up, you will have to return it to the breeder.
If you buy a movie on DVD, you can enjoy it in your home, but you can't set up an impromptu theater by projecting the movie on the side of a building.
The import thing, was the customer provided notice of this restriction at or before the time of sale. It sounds like the answer to this question is: yes.
You may be tempted to to claim some sort of power imbalance, which I don't buy in the general case, but in this particular case it is even less relevant. Large farms that use automated machinery costing many hundreds of thousands of dollars is the very definition of sophisticated customer, capable of hiring legal help and evaluating options.