Shop Work Orders for Farm Machinery Repairs

To ensure that your overhaul work is completed properly, you can help your dealer's shop foreman by filling out the work order properly. The work order is both a means of providing instruction and a control device.

Five minutes of your time with the shop foreman is worth an hour of mechanical time trying to diagnose what is wrong with an implement. Here are some basic rules to follow before signing your name on the dotted line.

Write it all Down

All information should be written down. Record the following:

• serial number
• motor number
• hour meter readings
• repairs required
• date it was taken in
• date promised

• Draw a line through the unused portion of the work order.
• Your signature, particularly on larger jobs, ensures complete understanding about the nature of the job. A complete description of the work to be performed will also alert the service personnel of the need to call you should a major change in the work order be required to repair the implement properly.
• Discuss and write down details of the warranty with the shop foreman. (What will be covered under the warranty? When does it start? On first day of use? If warranty repairs are needed, who will pay for the cost of labour for the repair?)
• Under Section 7(3) of the Farm Implement Act, all new repair parts used in a repair are deemed to be warranted to be free from defects as to material and workmanship for a period of 90 days from the date the repair part is first used by the purchaser in the first normal season of use.
• If work is being done in the winter months and the implement will not be used until spring, discuss this situation with the shop foreman and agree to the first day of use. Write that date down on the work order.

• Do not have the implement delivered until you have inspected it.
• Go to the dealership, review the work order with the shop foreman, inspect the implement repaired, and if possible, test drive it.
• Assure yourself that everything is working properly and that the instructions given on the work order have been carried out to your satisfaction.
• If applicable, a demonstration on the dynamometer may be in order at this time. By following the above basic rules, you should get more satisfaction from your next shop overhaul.