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.