The forum is a base of opinions, some more vocal than others, but still just each poster's opinion so don't worry about being defensive or having shots taken across your bow. Your experiences are already turning you away from these machines, but even if you decided that you liked them and wanted to only operate them we are not here to tell you that it would be a failure. While we would never encourage anyone to use these machines, you went in with your eyes wide open and are now learning the ins and outs of vending. Unfortunately these mechanical machines will be on the used market for many years to come and all we here on the forum can do is give our advice against using them. PandJ, your experience is invaluable to anyone who is considering using these machines. I can see potential for optimizing machine capacity, product sell by dates, good service (not running out of product), frequency of visits (which cost time) and travel time to site. I can see how a frequent repair jobs can destroy your profit per hour. Just running it for a few weeks I can start to see the types of locations that work and the types that don't. If I work it for a couple years and more machines fail (which they will), maybe I can offload route and get my capitol back out, but even if I scrap whole route, cost is worth the education. As long as I have a couple months of data, if a machine fails, I can decide if it is worth it to spend $2-3k on a higher quality snack and/or soda machine to replace it. This way I can have ten machines for the price of one. Even the best machine at a poor location, run by someone who doesnt know what they are doing will loose money.
Until then, having these junk machines allows me a low cost entry to get my business systems in place and get my hands in the real nuts and bolts of the business so I can figure it out. If someone can point me to a good data-source of mean-time-between-failure, repair costs, restocking times, capacity, or other good data that allow me to do any real analysis of life-cycle costs, it would be appreciated. I think a higher liklihood with these units is that after coils fail, rust gets into the system and ruins the compressor or some other crucial part.Īs far as worth of a machine, I have yet to find a good method to value machines other than hearsay and opinion.
Yes it was a risk to replace coils only to find leak in coils in walls of cabinet. I highly doubt that you or anyone else would put up with those golphers for 7 to 10 yearsĪZVendor, with the new coils the system is airtight and holding a charge. The major issue is golpher refrigeration (in addition to poor coils the thermostat adjustment is tricky and it is easy to freeze pop). There are other issues with these units (limited capacity, poor durability) but they are minor issues I think and they have some benefits (compact, light enough to move yourself, easy to repair and swap out parts). Attached is my guide to repairing, but will likely only give me another 7-10 years. Based on information I found online and what I know about the units I bought, the refrigerator will last about 7-10 years. If you are tempted to buy these get a flashlight and look through the openings of the pop vendor to the back of the machine and you will likely see streaks of rust running down the back.
Upon further investigation I found the real problem with Antares units. Well no surprise the one unit she had in storage did not work. Against the good advice of members from this forum I went ahead and bought a vending route of Antares combo units, but at a reduced cost.