We face a lot of problems with this issue in India as well. We should really try to do something about this together in a structured way. Any suggestions to take the first step in this direction?
I am always open for proposals.

Here in the U.S. OSHA has a lot to do with manufacturers keeping access to safety related settings limited to factory and factory authorized dealers. The emission liabilities and injury liabilities also contribute to the proprietary nature of the material handling industry. Automotive manufacturers do not fall under OSHA directly they are monitored by the DOT.

This is a very good topic, certainly here in europe, a lot of problems with software, complaining customers,...etc. Why they have to go to expensive agents and cannot use independent service companies? Does someone know if there is a association, to strengle hands? Think this is what happend in the past in the automotive sector?

Ray tech I was a -aymond tech for the about the same amount of time as you were. I agree with what you are saying. There is another brand of lift truck out there and you know what brand it is. i have had no problem buying test equipment, parts at decent prices. If it is in their catalog they will sell it to you. Which is one reason they kick but on -aymond. THE COLOR IS BEIGE. I do not work for them anymore and work for a diffrent dealer. And they provide manuals with their equipment. You screw something up bad enough you just have to call them to straighten it up.

By the way Everybody on this forum have a merry christmas and a happy new year

I'm rooting for the agricultural sector to get the help. They're a close knit community, hard working people that could use a break. The lift truck industry wont see universal scan tools for a long time.
Drive system differ greatly, with IC motors and fully electronic systems that are polar opposites. Parts options are...one or the other. Then companies like big RED and Orange who invest so much in proprietary software or even prevent manuals form being shared online.
I like Chuck from Indiana's idea of posting "problem Child" lift trucks to avoid. I have to agree with the Raymond comments, especially after working on them 13 years exclusively, I see better built trucks out there now as an independent, with other companies willing to work with you.
Fritz from NL, the situation of dealers giving trucks away and signing low cost maintenance contracts is common here too. I would drive across the city losing 45 mins, to do a.7 hour maintenance. Then, when i find 3 hrs of work and expensive parts, the customer says 'thanks, our Independent guy will take over now"
My former company lost a lot of work to independents that had to be called in to diagnose ongoing issues that factory trained techs could not fix, or didnt care.
The only way big Lift companies can pay big bucks to their techs, supply IPads. Iphones, give free vehicles to drive around all day billing 4 hrs is to hold on to all their software, tech info, parts monopoly. On lift trucks,There will be no universal scan tool for a long time.
Agriculture may have a chance, it's mostly IC engines that run similar to automobiles.

Frits i agree with you. OEM can't fix any better than independents. Some OEM engineers are only good at swapping parts until the problem is fixed. Good engineers usually independents dont have the luxury of changing expensive parts 1 after the other until the problem is fixed. We need to know we have ordered the correct replacement part first time.

Not all OEM engineers are parts swappers but quite a few are.

I agree that dangerous things can be done by peoplo that don't know what they are doing. But the same thing has happened to the automotive industry years ago.

Of course it is a good argument but in my opinion the main reason for the manufacturers is market protection, not safety. At least here in the netherlands: We would be very happy to get trained but for most brands the training is just for their own technicians.

They really don't like it when they sell a new forklift with little or no profit, have to make costs to repair warranty issues, and at the moment they can make money, the costumer chooses for an independent repairer.

What they have to do and what we have seen in the automotive industries (after RMI was introduced there): make it easier for the costumers to choose for official dealers: Tell them the dealer can fix it better, has more know-how, and as a result have lower costs because of better maintanance. Costumers don't walk away when they are satisfied!

Until this has changed: we will be very happy to serve their costumers.

One reason the mfgs of lift equipment try to keep repairof equipment in house is the lawsuit mentality of most operators. Someone gets hurt on a lift truck and files a lawsuit it is always the mfgr they go after because they have the deepest pockets. Sure they go after the last person who worked on it and then work their way up. I am not slamming lawyers or anything like that that but when you make something so easy an idiot can work on it , that is usually what works on it. You cannot hire an idiot cheap enough.

This is great for people that know what they are doing but we could also see a rise in forklift accidents when a customer buys some software for a forklift online and he tries to fix his own forklift and messes with the wrong parameter. Some electric trucks are so advanced these days, this could be dangerous.

In my experience you can buy the software but only if you have had the training to be able to use this software, but this is very expensive. Making this more readily available should be priority. And making this available at a reasonable cost.

Short of asking the government to solve this problem, within the industry we can point out the bad brands, the bad offenders. These forums get picked up by Google and if I was an owner researching brands of forklifts, I'd avoid certain brands such as...

Raymond: hard to work on, hard to get competitive guys to work on the equipment, expensive parts, proprietary software. Only 23 or so dealers, not much competition. If you own a Raymond you better get along with and absolutely love your local dealer because no one else will work on the thing.

Certain Hyster and Yale forklifts. Certain repairs password protected, expensive service manuals, tools that can't be bought and are protected to the dealers.

Toyota: more open, tools can be bought on the outside, not as many laptop only required repairs.

Nissan K21/K25 engine I think is the only engine that can be accessed via ODBC automotive style tools.

These are a few that come to mind, anyone have other stories?

seems like it is still in the "proposal" stages, if I read it correctly, (only took since 2004, thank goodness they didn't rush into anything, he said sarcastically).
Sure would be a wonderful thing,I wonder how the new trade agreements with even stronger IP protections will effect this.

Jens, read this http://www dot cema-agri dot org/publication/access-vehicle-repair-maintenance-information-rmi

I'm surprised to hear this from the agricultural sector. Is this really legally valid from 2018 on? If so, are there any texts, webpages, legal writings,... to confirm this please?

I'm sure that this is not the case in the forklift industry today, but maybe this could open opportunities in order to reach that decision as well. Independent repair shops face a lot of difficulties because of the protection of the RMI-software. That's why a lot of these smaller repair shops go bankrupt at the moment and the market share of original manufacturers becomes bigger and bigger. How about honest competition?

Please let me know more about this topic. I have a lot of interest in this.