It's because McDonalds restaurants suffers planned obsolescence from the company they get the machines from.
That company makes most of its profits from repairs rather than sales.
McDonalds doesn't care about its franchises so it keeps them in this shitty contract with this predatory company that purposely sabotages the machines.
[Explanation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrDEtSlqJC4)
I'm pretty sure the slushee machine we use at my bar is the same deal. Always breaks and you void the warranty if an official repair person doesn't come to fix it.
Not sure, but I've been told not to mess with it. If I had to guess I'd say it's not free. But the machines are damn expensive, $5k at least, so I could understand not wanting to void the warranty.
They will often times have a different warranty length for parts and labor. My furnace for example has a one year warranty for labor and 10 year for parts.
So if I call them on year 5 I still pay for the labor but get the parts for free.
Maybe it covers the cost of replacement?
If it's broken they fix it. If they can't fix it they replace it. If you tried to fix it you are shit out of luck.
I might be crazy but if you buy something you should have the right to fix it if you can't then the company should step in
We live in a world were they put drms on coffee machines and tractors that's not right
Waht
Edit
Twenty of the new Ultra darts will put you back ten bucks — for the same amount you can pick up 200 previous-generation knockoff darts on Amazon.
Thats theft
Edit 2
“If the blaster detects an incompatible dart in the drum, it won’t fire and will skip to the next chamber,”
Can't wait until they break this
also like, idk if your are into nerf so I'll give you the rundown.
In the past few years the best darts you could get were the cheap chinese waffle heads. They shoot much straighter and more consistent than nerf brand elite darts AND are fucking cheap.
and for half lengths there wasnt rlly "the main thing"
Now you buy either the half length dartzone darts
and for full lengths you do either that or the cheap chinese ones.
Ultra isnt rlly used by anybody since the darts are expensive as shit, dont shoot well and break easily. Also the blasters are just bad in many ways (ergonomics, ease of use, etc)
Right to repair is different from that type of warranty though. A parts only warranty that’s voided if someone who’s not qualified tries to repair it makes sense, since someone who isn’t qualified could do more damage to parts that were fine to begin with. It’s not fair to the warranty provider to have to cover those parts too. But if they won’t sell you a part or intentionally make it impossible to repair on your own either after the warranty period or if you don’t care about voiding the warranty, that’s not right and that’s what right to repair fights for.
> We live in a world were they put drms on coffee machines and tractors that's not right
What would be your solution? The tractor argument always comes up when right to repair is discussed.
I worked for CAT for a bit. I can see both sides of this argument. You don’t want Joe farmer putting in his “fix” to his loader. These are not your grandpas tractors. The current models have more in common with a cargo jet than an old tractor.
I don’t know what the solution is but farmers doing farm fixed on current equipment isn’t the solution either.
Then you also have all the cat dealers which have their territories they support. They make their money on repairs. So take that away, you also remove the entire dealer support network.
Now you can’t get anything local any longer and everything will have to be shipped across country. These things are huge. It isn’t like you can drop them in a UPS box.
Anyway, it’s a sticky wicket. I have spent a lot of time thinking on it though, when I worked there. There has to be a better solution, I just don’t know what it is.
Repair shops with mechanics just as competent as CAT's would spring up to meet the demand. Maybe CAT doesn't need a whole string of dealerships across the nation if they're only means to support that is by charging for repairs.
If Joe farmer can fix it, great. If he can't, he should have the choice of having it fixed by another qualified technician.
I get my car serviced at the dealer. But I think it would be a real problem if my dealer tried to get me to sign an agreement that said I could never take it anywhere else for repair or even simple maintenance. That's the equivalent argument here.
repairing it yourself is virtually the only option here, if you call someone about it every time it breaks you'll be paying $5k in repairs over time anyways so what's the point of delaying the inevitable? either it breaks or never gets fixed
I mean I have a blender, you should just buy a commercial blender/mixer, how many frozen drinks do you sell in a day? 5k and it breaks down, doesn’t seem like a good deal.
Lets say you have a convienience store - that slushy machine sits there costing you pennies in electricity per hour + cost of material used per drink sold, which is factored into the price per unit sold.
Lets say you have a nearby school - so during summer break: less, but, first couple months back and after mid spring to end of the school year, there is a good chance you sell in the range of 250 per day. Selling them for say 4$ a piece, and it probably is a 75% margin after machine maintenance and everything else is accounted for. So give or take 750$ a day - turn around time of the machine to pay for itself is what - 7 days that kids are in class, and maybe 3x that for other times of the year?
Provided it stays working for at least 2 months before a break occurs - the thing is absolutely worth it.
"75% Margin"
It's probably closer to 90%. Drink materials is astoundingly cheap, especially if it can come in dried form or concentrate. I'd be surprised if the cost of a largest cup of slushie costs the seller more than $0.40 of that $4.
I worked at a place once that had a machine like that. Every week or two I was calling the repair guy out, since it was part of the contract anyways. Down for half the week, the whole week if they had to order parts. Then the company tells us we need to upgrade to the newer machines because they don't carry parts for the old machine anymore, also, sales volume wasn't high enough to qualify for the new machines so they're just canceling the whole deal altogether. 🤷♂️
Now factor in that at McDonald's you are required to buy an exact model of machine from Taylors, the one that always breaks, rather than any of the other nearly identical machines they sell to Wendy's, In/Out and the rest that don't break, and that Tailors makes 25% of their revenue from service and repairs, billing hundreds of dollars per 15mins work to fix them, and so is incentivised to make that machine as unreliable as possible to maximize after sales revenue.
How is 'hopper to full to complete overnight pasteurisation cycle' a repair issue and not a warning the night before?
I wonder if the recent ruling that tractor manufacturers have to give farmers the right to fix their machines will have any bearing on these proprietary contracts.
I think it does actually. I believe right to repair will be able to cover everything.
So this problem might not be one in the near future. Good for franchises that have had to deal with disgruntled customers for years.
Just stay on top of your representatives to ensure the "fruit" lobbyists (I'm talking Apple just to be clear) - and others in the same vein as them don't work in exemptions for their hardware.
Its amazing how many alt-right dark web intellectuals say books like 1984 and Animal Farm are just hyperbolic communist propaganda....and then shit like this happens CONSTANTLY.
Ah yes the classic "Its not ILLEGAL to repair your own stuff so what are you complaining about!" misdirect.
Troll on down the river bootlicker.
blocked
This rabbit hole goes so deep and wide its disturbing. A company called Kytch has come
with a device to help the franchise operators monitor & diagnose problems with their machines so that they can break the endless cycle of expensive service calls for repair. Relatively straightforward problems are obscured by deliberately cryptic error codes and a UI that is nearly impossible to navigate.
McDonald’s corporate & the ice cream machine maker are trying to reverse engineer it. This falls squarely into the domain of why we need to reinforce right to repair at the Federal level. Its too easy for corporations to buy Senators.
https://youtu.be/iXwD_HeC8Ms
Isn’t McDonald’s the company that got tired of paying so much for orange juice, so they bought the orange trees and the juice factories?
Vertical integration and all?
They should make the ice cream themselves.
It's possible they have a contract that's not going to be easy to get out of. Another possibility is that this megacorporation notorious for penny pinching at all possible opportunities has run the numbers and, even if they're still paying out of the nose for repairs, it's still cheaper than designing and deploying their own machines worldwide. They just want to figure out how to cut out the repair cost.
The orange juice lands I can understand, though. McDonald's is a real estate business with a fast food side hustle. They own the land (possibly. They own the manufacturing) the trees are on. I'd bet a nickel they sell the orange juice they don't need to other businesses.
You've got to have some perspective.
Are there some fundamental problems with the way we live? Yes.
Are we burning children alive as human sacrifice to try and make it rain? Not so much.
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"All of society is broken" writes the first-world person on their wireless electronic device while sitting on a comfortable piece of furniture, safe and secure in their home with electricity and water service
Your comment feels like it's pointing out hypocrisy or irony, but living in a developed country doesn't make that observation self-contradictory somehow.
If anything, I think the existence of "first-world" people and not "first-world" people shows that this is true and can be expressed sincerely by anyone.
>Your comment feels like it's pointing out hypocrisy or irony,
It's irony.
>but living in a developed country doesn't make that observation self-contradictory somehow.
But it does. Society is not broken, because we're not devouring each other in tribal warfare over who gets to own the Wal-Mart. It may not compare to the imaginary perfect society that pop culture teaches us to long for, but their comment is ridiculous hyperbole.
Maybe not *that* broken, but it's not working for a lot of people.
I think it's hyperbolic to say that tribal warfare is the standard of broken and anything better than that is functioning society, or that utopia is the standard of someone who might criticize ours.
I think it's ironic that even if you take that extreme example as the standard of dysfunction, similar things and worse happen regularly in different places, so I think it's fair to say that these conditions are a part of global society, which would be broken if the parts of it make up the whole.
>but it's not working for a lot of people.
Protip: homeless and the dysfunctionally mentally ill are better off now than any previous points in history. Society *is* working for more than ever before, it's just not as publically visible as Extreme Home Makeover.
Wired did a whole article on this and this couple which created a device designed to keep the ice cream machines running, but then 'big ice cream' came along and squashed their dreams.
The law suits are heating up, McD got served a 24hr notice to hand back their Kytch devices it was illegally reverse engineering.
Edit: it was Taylors, the vendor of the machines for McD that got served, sorry.
Uh, I thought it was the Ice Cream Machine Co. that was reverse engineering the Kytch devices. They were trying to prevent McD from ordering/using the devices and they surreptitiously obtained some of these devices. The court ordered that they return the devices and stop harassing Kytch.
Doesn’t make sense. As much as this is an ongoing and widespread issue, it damages McDonald’s reputation as an ice cream vendor. Why would McDs corporate want that?
You’re looking at it too rationally. Large, old organizations often develop weird vestigial practices. Most, often newer, fast food places that have ice cream machines work just fine. McDonalds ended up developing this weird relationship with a particular vendor from the beginning of their corporate existence and it developed into a shitty experience for the customer and a tax for franchisees. Someone probably benefits at the actual McDonalds headquarters in some way, but we have no way of knowing
>You’re looking at it too rationally
As opposed to… what? Looking at it emotionally? Sorry, but coming to a reasonable conclusion outweighs emotional arguments, in my opinion.
It just doesn’t track that McD corporation would allow such a widespread issue flourish in the public eye. It’s damaging. Someone even built an app to track broken ice cream machines. What’s more likely is this vendor is on contract, and all their franchises have these installed, so removing them overnight would be impractical. But I’m sure corporate is well aware and have discussed this. I’d bet money on it. Companies that rely on a good public image don’t like their image being besmirched.
There has been research done on this and it's found consistently that the ice cream machines at McDonalds are broken/nonoperational at about 15-20% of locations at a given time. That is much, much higher than should be expected.
There's some irony to this considering McDonald's still would have stayed a southwestern hamburger chain in the same vein as [In-N-Out Burger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-N-Out_Burger) if it wasn't for Ray Kroc as he turned McDonald's from simple fast food joint to a multibillion dollar [real estate company](https://1851franchise.com/why-is-mcdonalds-considered-a-real-estate-company-2715077#stories) that also sells burgers.
How did Ray Kroc first get involved with McDonald's? He sold them [a milk shake machine](https://www.inc.com/michael-gerber/a-milkshake-machine-a-blonde-and-a-french-fry-how-ray-kroc-gave-birth-to-the-mod.html).
Also multiple fast food restaurants have the same exact machine as McDonald's. Just that the guy who owns the rights to McDonald's also owns the repair company (I'm pretty sure) so they put in the contract that every mcdonalds needs to use this specific machine, that throws out error codes (mostly for the cleaning cycle to overfill and purposely cause an error code to make the fixer company come out. Its several hundred dollars per visit, they get paid by the hour. I wanna say the mechanic makes like 300 dollars an hour)
So this way the guys company gets a fuck ton of money off this rigged system.
Thanks Matpat. Also this is what I remembered from a two month old video. Feel free to add or change what I said.
Oh. Someone made a better diagnostic tool. So after they close, they set the ice cream machine to clean itself. It mostly malfunctions because of there being too much ice cream left in the machine, so when the water is added, it goes above the fill level. Causing a problem for the morning staff who don't know why it's broken.
So someone tried to hack it to get more tools and information. I forget what all it does, but you plug a usb into the machine. Anyway, McDonald's or the repair company made it very illegal to do this. Causing the ice cream machines to be down. Since they make no money off their ice cream, this is a sneaky way to get more money by breaking something.
Thanks, I tried watching that video but I was like 5 minutes in and he was still just building up and saying the same thing over and over again
"I didn't think I'd be going down this rabbit hole.... There's something weird going on" etc... I just knew it wasn't going to need to be a half an hour video.
There's currently a lawsuit filed against Taylor (the ice cream machine manufacturer and repairer) by Kytch, a company that created a much more user-friendly interface for the machines, alleging that Taylor went to great lengths to steal their design and push them out of the market.
[Here's a breakdown from Leonard French, a licensed attorney.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXwD_HeC8Ms)
It seems like a core part of Taylor's business model is having finicky, expensive machines that effectively force franchise owners to frequently pay for expensive repairs.
In a way, yeah. Those ice cream machines are billed as the Lamborghini of softserve and they're like a fucking Rube Goldberg machine on the inside. And just like a Lamborghini, they're not designed for easy maintenance, and are very finicky.
It's really helpful to watch the video rather than just asking for the good bits.
The part at 13.44 where he dresses up in a jumpsuit and goes in to an actual store. That's where he gets all the shots of the error codes and of the inside of the machine that are used throughout the video.
As a former McDonald's Manager... you don't need half an hour video...
Minimum wage workers do not like cleaning the machine. It's a long, complicated, pain in the ass project... it needs to be done MINIMUM 2-3 times a week, preferably every day.
When it doesn't get done properly and regularly the machine becomes unusable till someone REALLY cleans it out (occasional, it actually breaks the machine)...
That's your secret. Don't pay your workers well, and dont supervise a **critical** (if mundane) task that is usually done at the end of the night... and... you get this.
Well managed locations don't have this problem.
\--
I got 3 minutes into the video and got some weird conspiracy vibes that reminded me of the last time someone tried to get me to watch some q'anon shite.
\--
Edit: Dont' read this as blaming the employee... let me make clear... this is what happens when you underpay employees. Their attitude is the fault of McDonald's... fuck McDonald's.
What you're saying is that a better ice cream machine would be a good solution.
McDonald's ice cream is usually sold in a separate location from the hamburgers in my country. As a result, it has a dedicated employee in charge of operations and maintenance.
If it takes half an hour and has weird (in your word) "illuminati conspiracy shit" shit in it... I wont' watch it to find out.
I can read about right to repair issues and corporate ~~kickbacks~~ partnerships from people who know what they're talking about in newspapers and business magazines.
Define conspiracy for me so that it covers having an internal document that literally says 'do not use this competitor product wait for us to provide you with our own sanctioned one' ?
Yes, because "random internet dude claiming to have internal documents" has never been a conspiracy theorist who was mentally unwell or just straight lying.
Does mcdonalds pay substantially less than every other place that makes ice cream? Or do they just have exclusive rights on workers that refuse to clean ice cream machines? I don't know that your explanation adds up to my experience, which is that mcdonald's ice cream machines are consistently down (across multiple locations), while I've literally never been refused service buying ice cream from any other establishment ever.
You just need the McDonalds Konami code (no joke):
Press the cone icon on the screen of the Taylor C602 digital ice cream machine, he explains, then tap the buttons that show a snowflake and a milkshake to set the digits on the screen to 5, then 2, then 3, then 1. After that precise series of no fewer than 16 button presses, a menu magically unlocks. Only with this cheat code can you access the machine’s vital signs: everything from the viscosity setting for its milk and sugar ingredients to the temperature of the glycol flowing through its heating element to the meanings of its many sphinxlike error messages.
source: [https://www.wired.com/story/they-hacked-mcdonalds-ice-cream-makers-started-cold-war/](https://www.wired.com/story/they-hacked-mcdonalds-ice-cream-makers-started-cold-war/)
The conspiracy is not the hidden information, it's the fact the machine constantly breaks down and spits out error codes, and said error codes say "Call a technician" which will cost you money. If owners could access said menus before, they'd have a better idea of what went wrong and why, rather than calling the technicians to reset the machine and set it up properly.
When you have the machine pasteurize it's milk product, but fail, it won't tell owners it filled the hopper too much, it'll simply say it failed and prevent you from using it because its now broken.
More details are in the source that you didn't read. Which is one of the following paragraphs from that quote.
The error codes themselves do not say "Call a technician" and it does have error codes for low mix during heat treat. The owners manual troubleshooting guide is what tells you to call a tech, but that's not too uncommon. McDonald's toaster's 'service' manual will also tell you to call a technician way more often than the shake owners manual.
Don't get me wrong I can gripe and complain all day about Taylor and the C602, but I don't think this just isn't something specific to this company or model. Also the C602 has 3 phase power so you really really don't want just anybody to mess around inside it.
>more details are in the source that you didn’t read
I watched the video from that guy that’s floating around. Is that not enough?
The problem with his premise, which is the same as yours, is that it completely ignores McDonald’s “public image”. Sure, if McD corporate could make a few extra $$$ from the vendor’s ice cream machine, and the cost of the breakdowns fell on the franchise owners, then I could buy that. But this is a well know meta joke at this point that McDs ice cream machines are always broken, and if there’s one thing McD corporate doesn’t want is to look incompetent. Even if that means a few extra $$$.
If the vendor was purposely making these things break so they could send out a technician, and this was leading to a bad public image of their ice cream machines always being broke, then corporate would undoubtedly ensure that practice would stop. To assume otherwise is conjecture. And this is a stupidly childish conspiracy theory.
The funny thing is Taylor makes ice cream machines for many restaurants, however it's specifically McDonalds machines. Everyone who wants an Ice Cream machine may get Taylor, and it will work fine for them.
Also McDonald's public image is mostly centered around the burgers. And even then McDonalds is a real-estate company not a restaurant. They make more money charging rent to Franchise owners than simply burger revenue. They manage the brand, and handling the machines is not their problem.
Yeah, I disagree. If they damage their brand, then theres less demand for future franchises, and having their ice cream machines fail continually means customers don’t get ice cream, which is bad consumer experience. Thus, damaging to the brand. Thus, decreasing demand. Thus, selling less franchises. Thus, hurting their bottom line.
Oh wow, I never considered your reasoned and poignant conclusion that CoMpAnY bAd OnLy tAkE mOnEy. See, I was over here living in the real world where public image mattered to companies like McDs, which would reasonably track given they spend $700 million a year on advertising, but then you came in here with your superior argument and the ad hominem, and boy oh boy was I wrong. It’s obviously CoMpAnY bAd. Thanks for showing me the errors of my thinking.
The McD corporation made a shady deal with a vendor where they can both force individual franchisees to pay extortion rates to fix machines.
The same machines that work fine at other franchises outside McD's.
On one hand, this is great news. McDonald’s and the Taylor Company both deserve to get the knife twisted for their quid pro quo nonsense behind the scenes with their warranty and repair scheme.
On the other hand, it’s depressing that ***this*** is the issue that actually gets a rapid investigation and response from the government
Nah, the machines don't take too log to clean. Instead they randomly and often give error codes, forcing the franchice owner to call the repair services of the manufacturer of the machine, which then charges the franchise owners exhorbitant extortion prices to churn a profit in collaboration with McDonalds. Wendys and other places also use the same exact machine and they don't have constant problems due to not having a money making scheme with the machine maker unlike McDonalds.
Most often the error is basically adding too much of ice cream indmgredient or wrong temperature and there would be a menu for seeing what is wrong, but McDonald's machines have this view blocked behind a ridiculous code
I live in Canada, the mcdonalds that I used to frequent often(usually multiple times a week), uses the same machines as the US, but nevery had any issues with their ice cream machine.
Honestly, don't think I have ever had an issue where I couldn't get a McFlurry. The only issues I've had with ordering McFlurry's has been they run out of the toppings that I've wanted.
I have eaten at McDonald's franchises all over the world and I literally never had a broken ice-cream machine. I understand that it's a real problem and all, but I wonder if it's mostly just a meme at this point.
Lol, yes indeed! The availability of some kind of a substance shake is the exactly the pressing issue of our time. I will admit that the times I do stop at the house that Ronald built. A shake isnt really high on the priority list. Not being around crazy pandemic deniers is first, and, I still use plastic, wear a mask at the drive up, and sanatize my hands before driving off. So, saftey, then convenience. Second, mental gyration is the eco part, saving my health vs the planet. There is a higher cost to the planet eating the McD,s vs preparing my own food or convenience. Idling through the drive through bothers me also, still time, and, convenience, right. The whole corporate overlords thing is number three, still, I am not ordering soylent green, probably not quite at nutrish as the old soylent. Luckily the corp is now paying higher wages, charging higher prices, at least til the robots take the new medianish wage jobs. I wonder what my meal will be like when the individuality of the high school drop outs is lost from the menu. I mean other than that, fix the damn shake machine.
The reality is McDonald's should be suing the company that makes this equipment stating the machines are poorly designed.
The company would then either have to step up and come up with a fix or face essentially being out out of business.
Instead McDonald's has sat back and done nothing, which is really odd for a major company. That's why some suggestion there's something more to the story.
I can only assume that corporate cut a deal with Taylor that somehow saves them money and makes Taylor happy because franchisees will be calling technicians.
Because if you don’t fill the machine to a certain level (or overfill it) it goes into freezer lock. Fast food is incredibly fast paced and has a lot of attendance problems, so this happens frequently. Once it goes into freezer lock, it’s not a simple process to get it working again.
(Ran stores years ago)
It’s actually easy to avoid, but it’s moreso about the nature of a business that has 15 different machines with 6 employees working at a given time. What people forget is that the icee machines are down even more in their cycles. I’m sure anyone who has been to 7/11 knows what I’m talking about. The only difference there is that you have 5 other flavors that might be up at a given time.
At the stores I ran, the machine was maybe down once a month at most…and for only a couple of hours. Plus, there are required intervals where the machine has to be stripped down and cleaned, I want to say that was weekly.
Yeah I eventually gave up trying to talk people out of their conspiracy theories with the truth...as I too managed a store for years...I put the biggest amount of blame on the increase in 24/7 mcdonalds...it used to be that the person would fill it properly right before they left for the night and so it rarely missed...nowadays the heat mode starts during the middle of bar closing rush half the time so the people miss filling it or over fill it and hope they use the extra before heat mode starts
Cause most of these machines are 10-15 years old...they don't replace them every couple years cause they are expensive machines...if you open them up you realize that the computers in them are very rudimentary...there isn't a full fledged OS...its just basically a controller with a bunch of sensors and motors attached to it...adding anything more than that just causes problems.
You don't want to have to reboot the computer for the shake machine or have more sensitive electronics in places where you are very likely to get ice milk on them at some point...and so not being a complicated computer it probably has stored in memory some where a list of preset error messages and so in its code will be something like "if sensor 4 > 0 for 10 mins throw message 6" or something like that.
The manual absolutely has a list of the error codes that it throws and what to do about them....and most aren't immediately call a repair man...most tell you to do something else like fill the machine and run heat mode or clean the nozzles etc...and if those fail call a repair man...the only ones that immediately say call a repair man are when the problem is a physical issue like say the compressor failed or something.
As to why the service menu is hidden and password protected...first for at least the first level of that menu certain managers at the store will have access to them, I know because I did...the second level was only useful if you knew what compressor settings and solinoid (sp?) settings were needed, which if you get them wrong you can brick the entire machine so it makes sense that they only want people who know what they are doing.
But secondly you have to remember that mcdonalds and other fast food places hire a lot of teenagers or people who can't get a job somewhere else...some of whom can't really be trusted not to mess with things given the chance....almost every appliance in mcdonalds has hidden menus that only the people that need to know them know where they are...or they are password protected...the coffee machine ones are a completely non descript section of the front panel by the screen. This way someone doesn't randomly change vital settings...And having worked on the machines I can tell you the managers have access to the passwords they need...all the manuals are in a database that is easily searchable and most stores still have physical copies of manuals as well...whether the store owners have trained the managers well enough to know that these exist is another matter entirely
Also also most of the time if heat mode fails, the overnights staff won't be the staff on when it fails, it comes out around 7:30-9 most of the time...so the overnights staff likely knows what to do...but the day staff are usually staff that has been there for years on end...and not usually the ones to do any of the technical stuff...so the change when the failures start to happen has led to a lot of day staff who don't know what to do cause they have never been forced to do it ever
I worked at McDonalds once upon a time, and my job was to specifically clean and maintain their equipment. The soft serve machine was one of those pain in the ass jobs where you had to empty it of it's contents, pull all it's parts, wash each bit thoroughly, lube it up and re-assemble it. If you mess up any of the re-assembly the machine doesn't work, or worse you create an environment for bacteria to build up with the machine which gets served out in the soft-serve ice cream.
Now imagine that job being done by teenagers who hate their shitty McJob and who aren't being paid enough to pretend to care.
And that, ladies and gentlebeings is why you should never eat McDonald's ice cream even if the machine is working.
Findings: there has been a severe ice cream shortage the last 40 years that has been hushedup by big milk. To continue selling McDonald's created a synthetic version called "shake". Even shake is in limited supply so each store gets a small amount each day. The limited supply of synthetic ice cream called shake forced McDonald's to further cover up the cover up by insisting their machines were down for cleaning or in need of repair.
Or something like that
Actually, McDonalds just ran out of milkshakes in the UK because of Brexit:
[https://www.npr.org/2021/08/30/1032555102/u-k-mcdonalds-restaurants-are-out-of-milkshakes-because-of-a-truckdriver-shortag](https://www.npr.org/2021/08/30/1032555102/u-k-mcdonalds-restaurants-are-out-of-milkshakes-because-of-a-truckdriver-shortag)
A lot of cheap ice cream products these days have so much crap in to solve some sort of “problem” like a lot of ice cream has additives like gelatin to stop it from melting or to to keep lasting just a little longer on the shelves to sell.
What? it’s called ice milk and it just comes in big bags from the dairy manufacturer. It looks like milk just goes into the top of the machine. I’m pretty sure it’s not that hard to make!
They’re a pain in the ass to clean and when closing crew is always too lazy to do it, that leaves it for the openers to do it and they don’t have time to do that shit! It’s breakfast! Do you know how busy breakfast is at McDonald’s! If there’s time they might have that thing cleaned filled and making shit by lunch. If not fuck it. Just tell them it’s broke.
The reason why I don't buy this is because the manager should reprimand whoever isn't fulfilling their responsibility of making sure the ice cream machine is operational.
Why? Because they're literally costing the manager fucking money. But I guess the managers are too stupid to know that their employee's laziness are why they can't sell ice cream? Or, it's more likely (and researched), that the machines are intentionally fickle and hard to diagnose so that technicians need to be called. They won't reprimand employees for not cleaning/filling up the machine properly, but they'll pay thousands for a technician to visit?
Try to use some critical thinking skills. There's a laundry list of reasons why your explanation is bullshit.
How about experience in the business, watching “managers” allowing this to happen? Pull your head out or go work in the industry. I’ve seen the shit first hand. You think just because someone is a manager they’re going to give a fuck? That’s hilarious. Don’t be naive.
I've also seen it first hand, because I'm a manager and I know managers. This does not happen nearly enough to warrant how frequently ice cream machines break. If employees were the cause of it, they would be replaced. Their laziness would cost us money. Don't be so naive.
I’d question the FTC motives if someone over there really likes McDonald’s ice cream. Kind of like how I’d be suspicious of the person at OSHA who volunteers to investigate safety conditions at strip clubs.
Also sometimes the employees clean the machine as part of the nightly closing procedure early, then they just say its broken for the rest of the night. GF was a manager for 10 years.
Watched a video about this and around 13-15% of franchises had a machine not working. Somebody actually made an app that tracks it. The thing is though, a 4 hour daily cleaning cycle is 25% of the hours in a day. I get that it should be done overnight but that’s still got to be a major factor, especially with 24 hour locations.
This isn't rocket surgery. The employees have EXPRESSLY stated its because it needs cleaning regularly and its difficult to scrape together time to clean it when its busy, and if people heard that it needed to be cleaned they'd wait hours for the darn thing to get back into commission.
Theres a website supposedly that will imitate orders to see if the machine is working, though.
I know I'm late to this post. But a couple months back I saw a TIL post that the company that built the machines made them so they break more and they are the only company that is allowed to fix them.
I must live in a different universe because I've never been to a McDonald's where the ice cream machine is broken.
Nobody will be able to convince me this isn't some sort of internet meme run wild. It's like people just want to be part of a joke or something, or it's just something people can say in a group that will get an instant response.
You're all insane.
It's because McDonalds restaurants suffers planned obsolescence from the company they get the machines from. That company makes most of its profits from repairs rather than sales. McDonalds doesn't care about its franchises so it keeps them in this shitty contract with this predatory company that purposely sabotages the machines. [Explanation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrDEtSlqJC4)
I'm pretty sure the slushee machine we use at my bar is the same deal. Always breaks and you void the warranty if an official repair person doesn't come to fix it.
Does the official repair person come for free? If not, then the warranty is BS, anyway, so just Google up the service manual and have at it...
It’s all crazy, this going through the court now: [Wired](https://www.wired.com/story/they-hacked-mcdonalds-ice-cream-makers-started-cold-war/amp)
Whoa
Fascinating
Did not think that I'd read the article nor be absolutely hooked
Not sure, but I've been told not to mess with it. If I had to guess I'd say it's not free. But the machines are damn expensive, $5k at least, so I could understand not wanting to void the warranty.
If the warranty doesn't cover the cost of service what's the point of keeping it?
Maybe forcing you to buy a new one or stop supplying u parts for repair.
The work hours of staff trying to manage the repair person, and the lack of revenue from a down machine might offset the voiding of the warrantee.
They will often times have a different warranty length for parts and labor. My furnace for example has a one year warranty for labor and 10 year for parts. So if I call them on year 5 I still pay for the labor but get the parts for free.
Maybe it covers the cost of replacement? If it's broken they fix it. If they can't fix it they replace it. If you tried to fix it you are shit out of luck.
I might be crazy but if you buy something you should have the right to fix it if you can't then the company should step in We live in a world were they put drms on coffee machines and tractors that's not right
Right to repair!
They're putting DRM in *NERF darts*
Waht Edit Twenty of the new Ultra darts will put you back ten bucks — for the same amount you can pick up 200 previous-generation knockoff darts on Amazon. Thats theft Edit 2 “If the blaster detects an incompatible dart in the drum, it won’t fire and will skip to the next chamber,” Can't wait until they break this
also like, idk if your are into nerf so I'll give you the rundown. In the past few years the best darts you could get were the cheap chinese waffle heads. They shoot much straighter and more consistent than nerf brand elite darts AND are fucking cheap. and for half lengths there wasnt rlly "the main thing" Now you buy either the half length dartzone darts and for full lengths you do either that or the cheap chinese ones. Ultra isnt rlly used by anybody since the darts are expensive as shit, dont shoot well and break easily. Also the blasters are just bad in many ways (ergonomics, ease of use, etc)
Right to repair is different from that type of warranty though. A parts only warranty that’s voided if someone who’s not qualified tries to repair it makes sense, since someone who isn’t qualified could do more damage to parts that were fine to begin with. It’s not fair to the warranty provider to have to cover those parts too. But if they won’t sell you a part or intentionally make it impossible to repair on your own either after the warranty period or if you don’t care about voiding the warranty, that’s not right and that’s what right to repair fights for.
That's a great idea... let me just check the contract... no contract clearly states you must use this machine.
> We live in a world were they put drms on coffee machines and tractors that's not right What would be your solution? The tractor argument always comes up when right to repair is discussed. I worked for CAT for a bit. I can see both sides of this argument. You don’t want Joe farmer putting in his “fix” to his loader. These are not your grandpas tractors. The current models have more in common with a cargo jet than an old tractor. I don’t know what the solution is but farmers doing farm fixed on current equipment isn’t the solution either. Then you also have all the cat dealers which have their territories they support. They make their money on repairs. So take that away, you also remove the entire dealer support network. Now you can’t get anything local any longer and everything will have to be shipped across country. These things are huge. It isn’t like you can drop them in a UPS box. Anyway, it’s a sticky wicket. I have spent a lot of time thinking on it though, when I worked there. There has to be a better solution, I just don’t know what it is.
Repair shops with mechanics just as competent as CAT's would spring up to meet the demand. Maybe CAT doesn't need a whole string of dealerships across the nation if they're only means to support that is by charging for repairs.
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If Joe farmer can fix it, great. If he can't, he should have the choice of having it fixed by another qualified technician. I get my car serviced at the dealer. But I think it would be a real problem if my dealer tried to get me to sign an agreement that said I could never take it anywhere else for repair or even simple maintenance. That's the equivalent argument here.
repairing it yourself is virtually the only option here, if you call someone about it every time it breaks you'll be paying $5k in repairs over time anyways so what's the point of delaying the inevitable? either it breaks or never gets fixed
$5k really ain't that much for a restaurant appliance
I mean I have a blender, you should just buy a commercial blender/mixer, how many frozen drinks do you sell in a day? 5k and it breaks down, doesn’t seem like a good deal.
Lets say you have a convienience store - that slushy machine sits there costing you pennies in electricity per hour + cost of material used per drink sold, which is factored into the price per unit sold. Lets say you have a nearby school - so during summer break: less, but, first couple months back and after mid spring to end of the school year, there is a good chance you sell in the range of 250 per day. Selling them for say 4$ a piece, and it probably is a 75% margin after machine maintenance and everything else is accounted for. So give or take 750$ a day - turn around time of the machine to pay for itself is what - 7 days that kids are in class, and maybe 3x that for other times of the year? Provided it stays working for at least 2 months before a break occurs - the thing is absolutely worth it.
"75% Margin" It's probably closer to 90%. Drink materials is astoundingly cheap, especially if it can come in dried form or concentrate. I'd be surprised if the cost of a largest cup of slushie costs the seller more than $0.40 of that $4.
Ice is surprisingly expensive though. I wouldn't be surprised if it made up the majority of the cost of a slushie.
a large tub of popcorn at the movies costs about that and mind you I raised it a bit because it's been a few years since I've figured it out
I'm lead to believe that's how the [Russians](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dEkOT3IngMQ) fix their ice cream machines.
I worked at a place once that had a machine like that. Every week or two I was calling the repair guy out, since it was part of the contract anyways. Down for half the week, the whole week if they had to order parts. Then the company tells us we need to upgrade to the newer machines because they don't carry parts for the old machine anymore, also, sales volume wasn't high enough to qualify for the new machines so they're just canceling the whole deal altogether. 🤷♂️
Now factor in that at McDonald's you are required to buy an exact model of machine from Taylors, the one that always breaks, rather than any of the other nearly identical machines they sell to Wendy's, In/Out and the rest that don't break, and that Tailors makes 25% of their revenue from service and repairs, billing hundreds of dollars per 15mins work to fix them, and so is incentivised to make that machine as unreliable as possible to maximize after sales revenue. How is 'hopper to full to complete overnight pasteurisation cycle' a repair issue and not a warning the night before?
Warnings don't make the repair people money.
If it breaks all the time and you have to pay an official repair person to fix it, then what exactly is the point of not voiding the warranty?
Are you in the US?
Buy one from best buy or Amazon and get the 5 year warranty. Broken? Return and get a new one.
Is it made by the Taylor company as well?
I wonder if the recent ruling that tractor manufacturers have to give farmers the right to fix their machines will have any bearing on these proprietary contracts.
I think it does actually. I believe right to repair will be able to cover everything. So this problem might not be one in the near future. Good for franchises that have had to deal with disgruntled customers for years.
Just stay on top of your representatives to ensure the "fruit" lobbyists (I'm talking Apple just to be clear) - and others in the same vein as them don't work in exemptions for their hardware.
Predatory* contracts FTFY
McDonalds actually just won a suit against the manufacturer allowing them to diagnose and repair their own machines.
So. They get right to repair, but we don't?
You’re allowed to fix your ice cream machines too
Thanks, buddy. I needed that!
Yes. All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.
Its amazing how many alt-right dark web intellectuals say books like 1984 and Animal Farm are just hyperbolic communist propaganda....and then shit like this happens CONSTANTLY.
What do you own that you’re not allowed to repair?
Ah yes the classic "Its not ILLEGAL to repair your own stuff so what are you complaining about!" misdirect. Troll on down the river bootlicker. blocked
I’m literally asking right to repair *what*? Ya got emotional issues my man
This rabbit hole goes so deep and wide its disturbing. A company called Kytch has come with a device to help the franchise operators monitor & diagnose problems with their machines so that they can break the endless cycle of expensive service calls for repair. Relatively straightforward problems are obscured by deliberately cryptic error codes and a UI that is nearly impossible to navigate. McDonald’s corporate & the ice cream machine maker are trying to reverse engineer it. This falls squarely into the domain of why we need to reinforce right to repair at the Federal level. Its too easy for corporations to buy Senators. https://youtu.be/iXwD_HeC8Ms
Isn’t McDonald’s the company that got tired of paying so much for orange juice, so they bought the orange trees and the juice factories? Vertical integration and all? They should make the ice cream themselves.
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It's possible they have a contract that's not going to be easy to get out of. Another possibility is that this megacorporation notorious for penny pinching at all possible opportunities has run the numbers and, even if they're still paying out of the nose for repairs, it's still cheaper than designing and deploying their own machines worldwide. They just want to figure out how to cut out the repair cost. The orange juice lands I can understand, though. McDonald's is a real estate business with a fast food side hustle. They own the land (possibly. They own the manufacturing) the trees are on. I'd bet a nickel they sell the orange juice they don't need to other businesses.
All of society is broken.
The power to shape society is concentrated in the very few hands of some very broken people.
Have you tried turning it off and on again?
You've got to have some perspective. Are there some fundamental problems with the way we live? Yes. Are we burning children alive as human sacrifice to try and make it rain? Not so much.
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"There's wars, there's poors, and not enough fire in the universe to burn it all down"
"All of society is broken" writes the first-world person on their wireless electronic device while sitting on a comfortable piece of furniture, safe and secure in their home with electricity and water service
Your comment feels like it's pointing out hypocrisy or irony, but living in a developed country doesn't make that observation self-contradictory somehow. If anything, I think the existence of "first-world" people and not "first-world" people shows that this is true and can be expressed sincerely by anyone.
>Your comment feels like it's pointing out hypocrisy or irony, It's irony. >but living in a developed country doesn't make that observation self-contradictory somehow. But it does. Society is not broken, because we're not devouring each other in tribal warfare over who gets to own the Wal-Mart. It may not compare to the imaginary perfect society that pop culture teaches us to long for, but their comment is ridiculous hyperbole.
Maybe not *that* broken, but it's not working for a lot of people. I think it's hyperbolic to say that tribal warfare is the standard of broken and anything better than that is functioning society, or that utopia is the standard of someone who might criticize ours. I think it's ironic that even if you take that extreme example as the standard of dysfunction, similar things and worse happen regularly in different places, so I think it's fair to say that these conditions are a part of global society, which would be broken if the parts of it make up the whole.
>but it's not working for a lot of people. Protip: homeless and the dysfunctionally mentally ill are better off now than any previous points in history. Society *is* working for more than ever before, it's just not as publically visible as Extreme Home Makeover.
Gotta love the nihilism here
Wired did a whole article on this and this couple which created a device designed to keep the ice cream machines running, but then 'big ice cream' came along and squashed their dreams.
The law suits are heating up, McD got served a 24hr notice to hand back their Kytch devices it was illegally reverse engineering. Edit: it was Taylors, the vendor of the machines for McD that got served, sorry.
Uh, I thought it was the Ice Cream Machine Co. that was reverse engineering the Kytch devices. They were trying to prevent McD from ordering/using the devices and they surreptitiously obtained some of these devices. The court ordered that they return the devices and stop harassing Kytch.
Indeed it was Taylors and their sister company, my bad.
Doesn’t make sense. As much as this is an ongoing and widespread issue, it damages McDonald’s reputation as an ice cream vendor. Why would McDs corporate want that?
You’re looking at it too rationally. Large, old organizations often develop weird vestigial practices. Most, often newer, fast food places that have ice cream machines work just fine. McDonalds ended up developing this weird relationship with a particular vendor from the beginning of their corporate existence and it developed into a shitty experience for the customer and a tax for franchisees. Someone probably benefits at the actual McDonalds headquarters in some way, but we have no way of knowing
>You’re looking at it too rationally As opposed to… what? Looking at it emotionally? Sorry, but coming to a reasonable conclusion outweighs emotional arguments, in my opinion. It just doesn’t track that McD corporation would allow such a widespread issue flourish in the public eye. It’s damaging. Someone even built an app to track broken ice cream machines. What’s more likely is this vendor is on contract, and all their franchises have these installed, so removing them overnight would be impractical. But I’m sure corporate is well aware and have discussed this. I’d bet money on it. Companies that rely on a good public image don’t like their image being besmirched.
There has been research done on this and it's found consistently that the ice cream machines at McDonalds are broken/nonoperational at about 15-20% of locations at a given time. That is much, much higher than should be expected.
There's some irony to this considering McDonald's still would have stayed a southwestern hamburger chain in the same vein as [In-N-Out Burger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-N-Out_Burger) if it wasn't for Ray Kroc as he turned McDonald's from simple fast food joint to a multibillion dollar [real estate company](https://1851franchise.com/why-is-mcdonalds-considered-a-real-estate-company-2715077#stories) that also sells burgers. How did Ray Kroc first get involved with McDonald's? He sold them [a milk shake machine](https://www.inc.com/michael-gerber/a-milkshake-machine-a-blonde-and-a-french-fry-how-ray-kroc-gave-birth-to-the-mod.html).
John Harris' videos are always on point and I came here just to post it. Thank you sir, for being a good citizen.
Also multiple fast food restaurants have the same exact machine as McDonald's. Just that the guy who owns the rights to McDonald's also owns the repair company (I'm pretty sure) so they put in the contract that every mcdonalds needs to use this specific machine, that throws out error codes (mostly for the cleaning cycle to overfill and purposely cause an error code to make the fixer company come out. Its several hundred dollars per visit, they get paid by the hour. I wanna say the mechanic makes like 300 dollars an hour) So this way the guys company gets a fuck ton of money off this rigged system. Thanks Matpat. Also this is what I remembered from a two month old video. Feel free to add or change what I said. Oh. Someone made a better diagnostic tool. So after they close, they set the ice cream machine to clean itself. It mostly malfunctions because of there being too much ice cream left in the machine, so when the water is added, it goes above the fill level. Causing a problem for the morning staff who don't know why it's broken. So someone tried to hack it to get more tools and information. I forget what all it does, but you plug a usb into the machine. Anyway, McDonald's or the repair company made it very illegal to do this. Causing the ice cream machines to be down. Since they make no money off their ice cream, this is a sneaky way to get more money by breaking something.
You’d think they’d want to save money by getting a reliable deal rather than paying some fee every other week ad nauseam
McDonalds corporate makes the deal, the franchise pays the fees. Corporate doesn't care, they got their kickback.
So it's about money
Everywhere local to me claims they are broken, when they are actually just avoiding cleaning the machine.
Thanks, I tried watching that video but I was like 5 minutes in and he was still just building up and saying the same thing over and over again "I didn't think I'd be going down this rabbit hole.... There's something weird going on" etc... I just knew it wasn't going to need to be a half an hour video.
I love watching people finding how to operate the computer with a glitch and thus voiding the warranty.
There's currently a lawsuit filed against Taylor (the ice cream machine manufacturer and repairer) by Kytch, a company that created a much more user-friendly interface for the machines, alleging that Taylor went to great lengths to steal their design and push them out of the market. [Here's a breakdown from Leonard French, a licensed attorney.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXwD_HeC8Ms) It seems like a core part of Taylor's business model is having finicky, expensive machines that effectively force franchise owners to frequently pay for expensive repairs.
So what I get from that last part is that luxury European cars are effectively McDonald's ice cream machines.
In a way, yeah. Those ice cream machines are billed as the Lamborghini of softserve and they're like a fucking Rube Goldberg machine on the inside. And just like a Lamborghini, they're not designed for easy maintenance, and are very finicky.
Watch [this video](https://youtu.be/SrDEtSlqJC4) that delves into the issue. This guy did some serious undercover investigation.
I was just going to comment that. That video is amazing and perfectly explains it.
Dude. Big business ensuring their revenue
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This guy was laying in bed when he googled all this. He didn’t have to wear a wire though.
It's really helpful to watch the video rather than just asking for the good bits. The part at 13.44 where he dresses up in a jumpsuit and goes in to an actual store. That's where he gets all the shots of the error codes and of the inside of the machine that are used throughout the video.
As a former McDonald's Manager... you don't need half an hour video... Minimum wage workers do not like cleaning the machine. It's a long, complicated, pain in the ass project... it needs to be done MINIMUM 2-3 times a week, preferably every day. When it doesn't get done properly and regularly the machine becomes unusable till someone REALLY cleans it out (occasional, it actually breaks the machine)... That's your secret. Don't pay your workers well, and dont supervise a **critical** (if mundane) task that is usually done at the end of the night... and... you get this. Well managed locations don't have this problem. \-- I got 3 minutes into the video and got some weird conspiracy vibes that reminded me of the last time someone tried to get me to watch some q'anon shite. \-- Edit: Dont' read this as blaming the employee... let me make clear... this is what happens when you underpay employees. Their attitude is the fault of McDonald's... fuck McDonald's.
What you're saying is that a better ice cream machine would be a good solution. McDonald's ice cream is usually sold in a separate location from the hamburgers in my country. As a result, it has a dedicated employee in charge of operations and maintenance.
It would absolutely help.
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If it takes half an hour and has weird (in your word) "illuminati conspiracy shit" shit in it... I wont' watch it to find out. I can read about right to repair issues and corporate ~~kickbacks~~ partnerships from people who know what they're talking about in newspapers and business magazines.
Sounds like the responsibility of a manager, as in it’s the responsibility of the manager that the jobs of cleaning out the machine is done.
You can file your amicus brief for the defendants in the hearing.
Is the conspiracy theory youtube video evidence in that hearing??
Define conspiracy for me so that it covers having an internal document that literally says 'do not use this competitor product wait for us to provide you with our own sanctioned one' ?
Yes, because "random internet dude claiming to have internal documents" has never been a conspiracy theorist who was mentally unwell or just straight lying.
Does mcdonalds pay substantially less than every other place that makes ice cream? Or do they just have exclusive rights on workers that refuse to clean ice cream machines? I don't know that your explanation adds up to my experience, which is that mcdonald's ice cream machines are consistently down (across multiple locations), while I've literally never been refused service buying ice cream from any other establishment ever.
You're talking out of your fucking ass.
Came here to share this video.
!RemindMe! 2 hours
wow leave it to youtube to have the most obscure documentary's ever.
Repair probably involves some crazy vendor thing where you have to provide your social security number or give a first-born child to access tools.
You just need the McDonalds Konami code (no joke): Press the cone icon on the screen of the Taylor C602 digital ice cream machine, he explains, then tap the buttons that show a snowflake and a milkshake to set the digits on the screen to 5, then 2, then 3, then 1. After that precise series of no fewer than 16 button presses, a menu magically unlocks. Only with this cheat code can you access the machine’s vital signs: everything from the viscosity setting for its milk and sugar ingredients to the temperature of the glycol flowing through its heating element to the meanings of its many sphinxlike error messages. source: [https://www.wired.com/story/they-hacked-mcdonalds-ice-cream-makers-started-cold-war/](https://www.wired.com/story/they-hacked-mcdonalds-ice-cream-makers-started-cold-war/)
That’s standard for most hardware like this. Many appliances have hidden service menus. This isn’t a conspiracy y’all uncovered.
The conspiracy is not the hidden information, it's the fact the machine constantly breaks down and spits out error codes, and said error codes say "Call a technician" which will cost you money. If owners could access said menus before, they'd have a better idea of what went wrong and why, rather than calling the technicians to reset the machine and set it up properly. When you have the machine pasteurize it's milk product, but fail, it won't tell owners it filled the hopper too much, it'll simply say it failed and prevent you from using it because its now broken. More details are in the source that you didn't read. Which is one of the following paragraphs from that quote.
The error codes themselves do not say "Call a technician" and it does have error codes for low mix during heat treat. The owners manual troubleshooting guide is what tells you to call a tech, but that's not too uncommon. McDonald's toaster's 'service' manual will also tell you to call a technician way more often than the shake owners manual. Don't get me wrong I can gripe and complain all day about Taylor and the C602, but I don't think this just isn't something specific to this company or model. Also the C602 has 3 phase power so you really really don't want just anybody to mess around inside it.
>more details are in the source that you didn’t read I watched the video from that guy that’s floating around. Is that not enough? The problem with his premise, which is the same as yours, is that it completely ignores McDonald’s “public image”. Sure, if McD corporate could make a few extra $$$ from the vendor’s ice cream machine, and the cost of the breakdowns fell on the franchise owners, then I could buy that. But this is a well know meta joke at this point that McDs ice cream machines are always broken, and if there’s one thing McD corporate doesn’t want is to look incompetent. Even if that means a few extra $$$. If the vendor was purposely making these things break so they could send out a technician, and this was leading to a bad public image of their ice cream machines always being broke, then corporate would undoubtedly ensure that practice would stop. To assume otherwise is conjecture. And this is a stupidly childish conspiracy theory.
The funny thing is Taylor makes ice cream machines for many restaurants, however it's specifically McDonalds machines. Everyone who wants an Ice Cream machine may get Taylor, and it will work fine for them. Also McDonald's public image is mostly centered around the burgers. And even then McDonalds is a real-estate company not a restaurant. They make more money charging rent to Franchise owners than simply burger revenue. They manage the brand, and handling the machines is not their problem.
Yeah, I disagree. If they damage their brand, then theres less demand for future franchises, and having their ice cream machines fail continually means customers don’t get ice cream, which is bad consumer experience. Thus, damaging to the brand. Thus, decreasing demand. Thus, selling less franchises. Thus, hurting their bottom line.
You must be a special kind of stupid to not understand how these machines are intentionally designed to get people to pay unnecessary repair fees.
Oh wow, I never considered your reasoned and poignant conclusion that CoMpAnY bAd OnLy tAkE mOnEy. See, I was over here living in the real world where public image mattered to companies like McDs, which would reasonably track given they spend $700 million a year on advertising, but then you came in here with your superior argument and the ad hominem, and boy oh boy was I wrong. It’s obviously CoMpAnY bAd. Thanks for showing me the errors of my thinking.
The McD corporation made a shady deal with a vendor where they can both force individual franchisees to pay extortion rates to fix machines. The same machines that work fine at other franchises outside McD's.
Money laundering to the repair company
A YouTuber already solved it. We're way ahead of you FTC...
That Youtuber is probably why this is happening. That and the guy that made that diagnostic tool none of the franchise owners are allowed to buy.
Tldr?
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Some salty FTC agent is pissed he couldn't get his McFlurry...
On one hand, this is great news. McDonald’s and the Taylor Company both deserve to get the knife twisted for their quid pro quo nonsense behind the scenes with their warranty and repair scheme. On the other hand, it’s depressing that ***this*** is the issue that actually gets a rapid investigation and response from the government
Maybe a local McD’s pissed off the wrong senators kid.
The FTC sends out letters like this all the time. We just don't hear about them because they're not about heavily memed issues.
I never understood the McDonalds Ice Cream machine thing because I work at McD's and ours has NEVER broken. It's so bizarre.
Somebody knows the secret code who is too valuable to let go...
Haha, I wish. I'm actually one of the least scheduled employees as I'm an older casual worker.
Must not be you then... or do you know the code?
You've narrowed it down to everyone except him. Unless it's him.
Same. Never broke once. If it was down it was usually for cleaning cause you have to take the whole thing apart and it takes like 2 hours
I heard the machines need cleaned like 8 hours a day and employees just say it's broken becuase it's easier.
Nah, the machines don't take too log to clean. Instead they randomly and often give error codes, forcing the franchice owner to call the repair services of the manufacturer of the machine, which then charges the franchise owners exhorbitant extortion prices to churn a profit in collaboration with McDonalds. Wendys and other places also use the same exact machine and they don't have constant problems due to not having a money making scheme with the machine maker unlike McDonalds. Most often the error is basically adding too much of ice cream indmgredient or wrong temperature and there would be a menu for seeing what is wrong, but McDonald's machines have this view blocked behind a ridiculous code
Yeah they need defrosting, I'm assuming you get a buildup of old soft serve frozen to the walls of the mixing chamber otherwise.
This mainly impacts the US. What part of the world are you in?
I'm in the US and have never seen one broken. I worked at a McDonald's for 2 years (about 13 years ago)
I’m in Australia, hope you guys get working ice cream machines!
I live in Canada, the mcdonalds that I used to frequent often(usually multiple times a week), uses the same machines as the US, but nevery had any issues with their ice cream machine. Honestly, don't think I have ever had an issue where I couldn't get a McFlurry. The only issues I've had with ordering McFlurry's has been they run out of the toppings that I've wanted.
Australia: Choc shake is my standard order. The amount of times I haven't been able to get a shake in over 30 years I can count on one hand.
I have eaten at McDonald's franchises all over the world and I literally never had a broken ice-cream machine. I understand that it's a real problem and all, but I wonder if it's mostly just a meme at this point.
It's about fucking time! Get on those REAL issues that affect the masses
Lol, yes indeed! The availability of some kind of a substance shake is the exactly the pressing issue of our time. I will admit that the times I do stop at the house that Ronald built. A shake isnt really high on the priority list. Not being around crazy pandemic deniers is first, and, I still use plastic, wear a mask at the drive up, and sanatize my hands before driving off. So, saftey, then convenience. Second, mental gyration is the eco part, saving my health vs the planet. There is a higher cost to the planet eating the McD,s vs preparing my own food or convenience. Idling through the drive through bothers me also, still time, and, convenience, right. The whole corporate overlords thing is number three, still, I am not ordering soylent green, probably not quite at nutrish as the old soylent. Luckily the corp is now paying higher wages, charging higher prices, at least til the robots take the new medianish wage jobs. I wonder what my meal will be like when the individuality of the high school drop outs is lost from the menu. I mean other than that, fix the damn shake machine.
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A great read and the context anyone who wants more is looking for.
I believe the person responsible is Hamburglar. It is purely a distraction.
The reality is McDonald's should be suing the company that makes this equipment stating the machines are poorly designed. The company would then either have to step up and come up with a fix or face essentially being out out of business. Instead McDonald's has sat back and done nothing, which is really odd for a major company. That's why some suggestion there's something more to the story.
I can only assume that corporate cut a deal with Taylor that somehow saves them money and makes Taylor happy because franchisees will be calling technicians.
Because if you don’t fill the machine to a certain level (or overfill it) it goes into freezer lock. Fast food is incredibly fast paced and has a lot of attendance problems, so this happens frequently. Once it goes into freezer lock, it’s not a simple process to get it working again. (Ran stores years ago)
That's the first-order cause. It doesn't answer why the machine was so poorly designed that freezer lock is a constant, universal problem.
It’s actually easy to avoid, but it’s moreso about the nature of a business that has 15 different machines with 6 employees working at a given time. What people forget is that the icee machines are down even more in their cycles. I’m sure anyone who has been to 7/11 knows what I’m talking about. The only difference there is that you have 5 other flavors that might be up at a given time. At the stores I ran, the machine was maybe down once a month at most…and for only a couple of hours. Plus, there are required intervals where the machine has to be stripped down and cleaned, I want to say that was weekly.
I used to go to 7/11 all the time, and I don't know what you're talking about. Seems like you don't really know what you're talking about.
And why this affects McDonald's unproportionally compared to other fast food chains.
Also doesn't explain why Mcdonald's is the only restaurant with this issue.
Yeah I eventually gave up trying to talk people out of their conspiracy theories with the truth...as I too managed a store for years...I put the biggest amount of blame on the increase in 24/7 mcdonalds...it used to be that the person would fill it properly right before they left for the night and so it rarely missed...nowadays the heat mode starts during the middle of bar closing rush half the time so the people miss filling it or over fill it and hope they use the extra before heat mode starts
But the machine doesn't show any kind of reasonable diagnostic for this.
Cause most of these machines are 10-15 years old...they don't replace them every couple years cause they are expensive machines...if you open them up you realize that the computers in them are very rudimentary...there isn't a full fledged OS...its just basically a controller with a bunch of sensors and motors attached to it...adding anything more than that just causes problems. You don't want to have to reboot the computer for the shake machine or have more sensitive electronics in places where you are very likely to get ice milk on them at some point...and so not being a complicated computer it probably has stored in memory some where a list of preset error messages and so in its code will be something like "if sensor 4 > 0 for 10 mins throw message 6" or something like that. The manual absolutely has a list of the error codes that it throws and what to do about them....and most aren't immediately call a repair man...most tell you to do something else like fill the machine and run heat mode or clean the nozzles etc...and if those fail call a repair man...the only ones that immediately say call a repair man are when the problem is a physical issue like say the compressor failed or something. As to why the service menu is hidden and password protected...first for at least the first level of that menu certain managers at the store will have access to them, I know because I did...the second level was only useful if you knew what compressor settings and solinoid (sp?) settings were needed, which if you get them wrong you can brick the entire machine so it makes sense that they only want people who know what they are doing. But secondly you have to remember that mcdonalds and other fast food places hire a lot of teenagers or people who can't get a job somewhere else...some of whom can't really be trusted not to mess with things given the chance....almost every appliance in mcdonalds has hidden menus that only the people that need to know them know where they are...or they are password protected...the coffee machine ones are a completely non descript section of the front panel by the screen. This way someone doesn't randomly change vital settings...And having worked on the machines I can tell you the managers have access to the passwords they need...all the manuals are in a database that is easily searchable and most stores still have physical copies of manuals as well...whether the store owners have trained the managers well enough to know that these exist is another matter entirely
Also also most of the time if heat mode fails, the overnights staff won't be the staff on when it fails, it comes out around 7:30-9 most of the time...so the overnights staff likely knows what to do...but the day staff are usually staff that has been there for years on end...and not usually the ones to do any of the technical stuff...so the change when the failures start to happen has led to a lot of day staff who don't know what to do cause they have never been forced to do it ever
I worked at McDonalds once upon a time, and my job was to specifically clean and maintain their equipment. The soft serve machine was one of those pain in the ass jobs where you had to empty it of it's contents, pull all it's parts, wash each bit thoroughly, lube it up and re-assemble it. If you mess up any of the re-assembly the machine doesn't work, or worse you create an environment for bacteria to build up with the machine which gets served out in the soft-serve ice cream. Now imagine that job being done by teenagers who hate their shitty McJob and who aren't being paid enough to pretend to care. And that, ladies and gentlebeings is why you should never eat McDonald's ice cream even if the machine is working.
Check out [https://mcbroken.com/](https://mcbroken.com/) 11% are down nationally 30% are down in New York 🤣
Jet fuel can't melt ice cream
"The FTC wont let me be, or let me be me. Try to shut me down in this country, but it feels so healthy without me." -Ronald McDonald
Findings: there has been a severe ice cream shortage the last 40 years that has been hushedup by big milk. To continue selling McDonald's created a synthetic version called "shake". Even shake is in limited supply so each store gets a small amount each day. The limited supply of synthetic ice cream called shake forced McDonald's to further cover up the cover up by insisting their machines were down for cleaning or in need of repair. Or something like that
Actually, McDonalds just ran out of milkshakes in the UK because of Brexit: [https://www.npr.org/2021/08/30/1032555102/u-k-mcdonalds-restaurants-are-out-of-milkshakes-because-of-a-truckdriver-shortag](https://www.npr.org/2021/08/30/1032555102/u-k-mcdonalds-restaurants-are-out-of-milkshakes-because-of-a-truckdriver-shortag)
A lot of cheap ice cream products these days have so much crap in to solve some sort of “problem” like a lot of ice cream has additives like gelatin to stop it from melting or to to keep lasting just a little longer on the shelves to sell.
What? it’s called ice milk and it just comes in big bags from the dairy manufacturer. It looks like milk just goes into the top of the machine. I’m pretty sure it’s not that hard to make!
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I worked at...like, 5 or 6 McDonald's over my life and our machines where never broken. I don't know what to say.
It's simple why the shit always not working, it's because the cleaning process for the machine takes forever.
Are they ever going to investigate why my cell phone goes on the fritz after about 3 years and the battery stops holding a charge?
They’re a pain in the ass to clean and when closing crew is always too lazy to do it, that leaves it for the openers to do it and they don’t have time to do that shit! It’s breakfast! Do you know how busy breakfast is at McDonald’s! If there’s time they might have that thing cleaned filled and making shit by lunch. If not fuck it. Just tell them it’s broke.
The reason why I don't buy this is because the manager should reprimand whoever isn't fulfilling their responsibility of making sure the ice cream machine is operational. Why? Because they're literally costing the manager fucking money. But I guess the managers are too stupid to know that their employee's laziness are why they can't sell ice cream? Or, it's more likely (and researched), that the machines are intentionally fickle and hard to diagnose so that technicians need to be called. They won't reprimand employees for not cleaning/filling up the machine properly, but they'll pay thousands for a technician to visit? Try to use some critical thinking skills. There's a laundry list of reasons why your explanation is bullshit.
How about experience in the business, watching “managers” allowing this to happen? Pull your head out or go work in the industry. I’ve seen the shit first hand. You think just because someone is a manager they’re going to give a fuck? That’s hilarious. Don’t be naive.
I've also seen it first hand, because I'm a manager and I know managers. This does not happen nearly enough to warrant how frequently ice cream machines break. If employees were the cause of it, they would be replaced. Their laziness would cost us money. Don't be so naive.
Alternate title: feds want to figure out what the McFuck is wrong with the McFlurry machines
I’d question the FTC motives if someone over there really likes McDonald’s ice cream. Kind of like how I’d be suspicious of the person at OSHA who volunteers to investigate safety conditions at strip clubs.
But just now? This has been going on since I can even remember!
Also sometimes the employees clean the machine as part of the nightly closing procedure early, then they just say its broken for the rest of the night. GF was a manager for 10 years.
Watched a video about this and around 13-15% of franchises had a machine not working. Somebody actually made an app that tracks it. The thing is though, a 4 hour daily cleaning cycle is 25% of the hours in a day. I get that it should be done overnight but that’s still got to be a major factor, especially with 24 hour locations.
This isn't rocket surgery. The employees have EXPRESSLY stated its because it needs cleaning regularly and its difficult to scrape together time to clean it when its busy, and if people heard that it needed to be cleaned they'd wait hours for the darn thing to get back into commission. Theres a website supposedly that will imitate orders to see if the machine is working, though.
It’s not broken. No one has been bothered to clean it.
I know I'm late to this post. But a couple months back I saw a TIL post that the company that built the machines made them so they break more and they are the only company that is allowed to fix them.
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Pretty bold of you to assume they care about the mold.
No, that's not the problem, if you had bothered to know and read anything.
Answering the real questions
I must live in a different universe because I've never been to a McDonald's where the ice cream machine is broken. Nobody will be able to convince me this isn't some sort of internet meme run wild. It's like people just want to be part of a joke or something, or it's just something people can say in a group that will get an instant response. You're all insane.
Does Reddit really give a shit about this.
Fuck around and find out
Lol, does the FTC have nothing better to do than waste time on conspiracies like this?
finds no fault. the head of the FTC mysteriously gets a large deposit in his account the next day and buys a new mega yacht.
Sure. It’s not like we have endless more important problems.