My last Meile developed a fault after about 18 months- 6 months outside of the warranty. I argued my case about it not having been of merchantable quality- long story short- they sent an engineer out who was able to, with the aid of his laptop, confirm how long the machine had been in use.
When my mum replaced hers, the engineer used his laptop to set the machine to wash as quickly as possible, rather than as economically as possible.
Apropos the John Deere case, they didn't give end users access to the software, they agreed to let third party repairers have limited access subject to contracts that prevent those independants from releasing trade secrets or from tinkering with emissions related settings.
It is a step in the right direction though.
The right to repair legislation is still very scant/patchy.