Hiring your own mechanic may seem extreme, but there could be situations where it makes economic sense.

Iowa State farm management specialist Kelvin Leibold believes it would not make sense for farms with less than 5,000 acres.

“Most farmers tend to link with a professional ‘shade tree’ mechanic,” he says. “We use one for planter and combine. Our shade-tree guy does 90% of the planter work in the county.

“Even at 5,000 acres, a farm would probably have someone who specializes in mechanical repairs working on the combines, planters and tillage tools, but I am not sure if they could do diagnostics on tractors without the software.”

Aging equipment
With tight margins, farmers are holding on to equipment longer. Your machinery repair and maintenance costs could merit a full-time specialist, or perhaps a full-time employee who specializes in equipment as well as another area of expertise.

Chase Dewitz, a Steele, N.D., grain and feedlot operator, hired a full-time mechanic in 2015. Before that time, he and his father, Rob, handled most of the machine maintenance, including larger overhaul projects.

“Dad is very mechanically oriented, but he’s aging,” says Chase Dewitz. “I can handle the work. But for me, it became too time-consuming.”

That’s because the farm has more than quadrupled in size, both acreage and livestock, in the last 10 years. The Dewitzes built a state-of-the-art feedlot in 2005. Today, the operation manages 20,000 acres, a 1.1 million-bushel storage facility and a 2,500-head feedlot. They also manage over 2,000 mother cows and bred heifers.

“The cropland growth was all about opportunities that kept presenting themselves,” says Dewitz. “In 2012 we had an opportunity to rent a pretty large chunk of acreage — pastureland — with another farm. That’s when we made the big jump from 350 to 1,100 cows in one year. It was big, but it was a good year to do it, because western Nebraska was dry, and many were forced to sell out.”

Growing fleet
The equipment fleet was growing, too, from one to now four combines. The Dewitzes built a 30,000-square-foot shop in 2013 for $1.1 million. It includes a 100-by-250-foot main building, a 100-by-46-foot lean-to on one side, and a 32-by-46-foot two-story living area with kitchen, two bedrooms, bath, laundry room and a garage for the farm’s airplane.

“I knew we had the mechanical capabilities between my dad and I and some employees, but it was always part of the plan to get a full-time mechanic on the payroll,” says Dewitz.

In the hiring process, Dewitz came across a job candidate who had worked as a mechanic at a large construction company. He was a cousin to some current employees, so Dewitz hired him as shop boss. Gilbert Geldenhuis, or “Gilly” as he’s known, does all major repairs, engine overhauls, clutches and other technical jobs. He’s from South Africa, so the Dewitzes are working to get him a green card.

Dewitz estimates his equipment costs at $80 per acre. He’s focusing on machinery debt and how much it costs to run that equipment each year.

“If I was hiring my local dealer to do all the work we do, I couldn’t afford it,” he says. “I don’t know how you can afford to pay your local dealer $150 an hour to do all this repair work. A lot of farms have built shops, and if they do the math, they could find they could easily pay a guy on staff and be money ahead.”

Dewitz also believes the soft market for used equipment is an advantage. “What is that warranty costing you for new iron if you can buy late-model used equipment so much under the money compared to new, and you have the ability to fix it if needed?” he says.

Digital hurdle
The biggest hurdle for anyone with an on-staff or independent shade-tree mechanic is diagnostics. Farmers are forbidden to fix their own combines and tractors under the federal Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a law passed in 1998 to protect intellectual property of the software in farm equipment.

John Deere has stated to the U.S. Copyright Office that people who buy the company’s tractors do not own the software that makes them run, but instead, have an “implied license for the life of the vehicle to operate the vehicle.”

With dealerships closing and technicians located farther and farther from farms, this law has frustrated tractor owners. The backlash has led to a “fair repair” movement, with legislation introduced in New York, Massachusetts and Minnesota. (More information at repair.org.)

Meanwhile the Dewitzes invested $7,000 in diagnostic software out of Canada. Originally built to diagnose truck systems, the company was working on a program that would allow diagnosis of John Deere engine codes as well.

“That’s the part that’s really going to be interesting,” says Dewitz. “Some of this software might cost a lot, but you might pay for it right away in savings.”