About Dirt Road Mechanic
My name is Sam, and I started Dirt Road Mechanic because I got tired of watching good equipment sit dead in a field while its owner dug through forty pages of forum posts just to find an answer that may or may not have been right.
I grew up around agriculture. My father was a seed salesman, and we had property out in South Dakota — so tractors, implements, and the particular kind of frustration that comes with a machine breaking down at the worst possible moment were part of life from an early age. That background eventually led me to Utah State University, where I earned a Bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Systems Technology alongside a degree in Computer and Information Systems.
Before the ink was dry on that diploma, I had already put in four years working hands-on with ag equipment — including an internship at a wheat operation spanning 22 sections, where John Deere tractors were the backbone of every single workday. When something broke, waiting on a dealer wasn’t always an option. You figured it out, or the season moved on without you.
That experience is what this site is built on.
Most equipment owners I’ve come across want to fix their own machines. They’re capable, they’re motivated, and they’re tired of paying shop rates for problems they could solve themselves with the right information. The problem isn’t ability — it’s access. Good, accurate, plain-English repair guidance for tractors and ag equipment is genuinely hard to find. What exists is either buried in forum threads, locked behind a dealer login, or written by someone who has clearly never turned a wrench in their life.
Dirt Road Mechanic exists to change that. Every guide on this site is written with real field experience behind it — not just research. I cover tractors, implements, and ag equipment across all the major brands, with a focus on troubleshooting, repair, maintenance, and helping you make smarter buying decisions without getting taken for a ride.
If you’ve got a machine giving you trouble, or you’re trying to figure out what to buy without spending the next three hours reading contradictory opinions on a forum, you’re in the right place.
Questions or topic suggestions? Reach out at contact@dirtroadmechanic.com