I'm worn out from driving a straight line all day
That exhaustion is a real cost and it is the one the spreadsheets leave out. Holding a line is four small corrections a second, all day, in dust — your grandfather was the autosteer, and it wore men out. Guidance doesn't reduce the passes you need; it takes the holding off you, which is what makes the last pass before a rain possible at eleven at night.
What actually works
The wheel moves in small, constant, boring corrections — exactly what your shoulders were doing — and you keep the headlands, the turns, the ditch and the dog.
$1,000–1,300 in partsYou stay in the seat. The seat switch and the steering-wheel-grab cutout are part of the build, not accessories, and anything that invites you to leave the seat is a different and much worse machine.
The 4-inch seam at nine in the morning is an 8-inch seam at seven at night. The tiredness and the waste are the same problem, which is why fixing one fixes the other.
Run the numbers
- Autosteer: dealer quote vs. built yourself → — free calculator, works offline.
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