A day with…….. Mike Randall – Agricultural Technician, Bibury Branch.
Mike started his John Deere apprenticeship with us back in 2010 and has been a valued member of the team ever since.
I travelled to my first job of the day for 8am which was a tractor located near Tewkesbury. The report from the previous evening is that the tractor had lost forward drive and was intermittent in reverse. The operator is not on site and the tractor is located on the edge of a field. After arriving and turning on the ignition I was able to retrieve an error code from the onboard diagnostic system. After consulting Service Advisor (John Deere’s technical manuals) I could see that there was a possible issue with a solenoid on the Gearbox. Further confirmation was made by checking the resistance in the solenoid which proved it had failed. A check on our parts system showed that we stocked the solenoid at our Evesham branch. A short trip over to Evesham to collect the part then fitting it to tractor allowed the customer to be on his way again.
My next job is sent through on my phone via an electronic job card, a tractor with a loss of engine power located not too far away. When I arrived, I find it would not start so connected the laptop to the tractor, it showed that there was a lack of fuel pressure from the high pressure pump. With this quick diagnostic a new pump is ordered and will be delivered over night ready to revisit the tractor first thing the following morning.
Travelling back to Bibury it is now lunchtime. A half hour lunch stop and a phone call came into the office that a customer was having trouble getting his tractor engine to rev up correctly. Having seen that the tractor had only recently been delivered I found out he was still not familiar with all the settings on the Gen 4 screen. As the customer had taken out a JDLink subscription I am able to remotely connect to the screen in his cab and see that the tractor was in engine cruise mode. I could help the customer out of his predicament and also give him a few helpful pointers along the way.
The last job of the day came in also via JDLink with an error code automatically emailed to my Service Manager. The job was a combine which was constantly dropping threshing speed. The diagnosis of the error code was that it was a possible fault with the speed sensor. We had a speed sensor in stock and following directions from JDLink to the combine I was able the remove the sensor and replace to fix the fault with a minimum of downtime for the customer.
I really enjoy the sense of satisfaction that comes with being able to fix a customer’s problem, and with such a wide range of equipment sold at TAG there’s never a dull day and always something new to learn.
