Calgary — With farm equipment chipping or tuning becoming more widespread, equipment dealers in Western Canada are encouraging farmers to think twice.

The Western Equipment Dealers Assn. (WEDA) today launched an awareness campaign to highlight the risks of chipping. The campaign theme asks, “Who pays the bill for chipped equipment?” 

According to WEDA CEO John Schmeiser, equipment dealers have grown increasingly concerned about the chipping trend in recent years. “The idea is to alter the operating software for a piece of farm equipment, to run it at higher horsepower, torque or groundspeed, or to modify emission controls,” says Schmeiser. “Equipment chipping can be done for far less than the price of buying higher capacity equipment, so you can understand that an equipment owner would listen to that.”

Among the issues involved when farm equipment is altered are:

• Equipment manufacturers will void the warranty if operating or emissions software is removed or modified.
• If equipment is run at higher horsepower, temperature or groundspeed than it was designed for, it won’t last as long as it should.
• Altering or removing DEF emissions systems is illegal in Canada and the U.S.
• These modifications could cause the next owner of the equipment to experience operating problems and could shorten the useful life of the equipment.

WEDA’s position on chipping is explained in a series of blog posts here.