Dealers Testify in Missouri Over Right to Repair

The following is a transcript from testimony given by Paul Combs, president of Baker Implement, and Tom Nobbe, partner with Sydenstricker Nobbe Partners, during a Missouri Joint Committee on Agriculture Hearing from Oct. 5, 2022. 

Paul Combs: Thank you all for taking time to hear from me. I'm Paul Combs, the president of Baker Implement Company. I'm a resident of Kennett, Missouri and our company has been in business since 1938. We have 11 locations, seven of which are in Missouri. And I'm the fourth, of five generations that have worked in our business. We've got 18 stockholders that are all members of our extended family.

My family's also involved in production agriculture. We have farms that grow cotton, rice, corn, soybeans and peanuts. So, I'm familiar with the farmer's side of the equation as well. And, we employ about 180 folks in our dealerships, most of them in Missouri because that's where most of our stores are. And the brands that we sell are Case IH, and Kubota, are the two flagship brands. And we sell some other specialty brands from other vendors from all different parts of the world.

Tom Nobbe: I'm Tom Nobbe, a partner in Sydenstricker Nobbe Partners, which is owned by the Sydenstricker and Nobbe families. We're a 27 store, John Deere ag and turf dealer in southern Illinois and Missouri. 18 of our stores are in Missouri, and nine stores are in Illinois. Our business started in 1907 in Waterloo, Illinois. In 1945 in Mexico, Missouri. Both of our families are in the fourth generation, we have 707 employees, 509 of which reside right here in Missouri. I really appreciate the committee allowing me to testify in opposition to right to repair and help you understand it as far as a dealer perspective.

Our dealership has been providing for quite a few years now. Everything a customer or independent repair person needs to perform the repairs on his own. That includes operator's manuals, tech manuals, diagnostic manuals, parts, expert advice, as well as all the electronic service diagnostic equipment that they need to do that.

So, that's why we don't really think the bill is necessary because I think we've already, the industry has already given everything that a customer needs. We believe it is their decision to repair their own equipment or have somebody else repair it. Don't necessarily have to come to us. Over half of our parts are actually sold that don't go through our shop. So somebody else is doing those repairs.

Paul Combs: And that it gets to a business model. We keep about 14 million worth of parts inventory on hand. Carrying cost of, that's north of $750,000 a year. Had one example this past weekend where a customer's combine went down with a major that needed a major repair. The parts component only of the repair was $14,000. Now we loaned the customer combine, we had all those $14,000 worth of parts on our shelves at one of our stores. We had to move parts from a couple of different stores, but we were able to get the customer going in a couple of days.

And a lot of the Right to Repair legislation mandates that the independent shops have the availability of the parts at the same price from the manufacturers. And that would destroy that model of us being able to keep a customer going in a short period of time by having the parts on hand. I mean our goal is to keep our customers going. And we also do business with independent repair shops. And so, we have no desire to shut them out of the business. We're just, what we don't want is the right for somebody to modify something that causes it to be out of specs, or the complaint we get all the time is the emissions problems.

I mean when the emissions, when engines became more emission compliant, it added complexities and it added sensors and those things will shut a piece of equipment down. But that's federal law, and there's not a lot that I as a dealer or Tom as a dealer or my family as farmers can do about it, unfortunately.