I worked for Mcdonalds for many years and was the main person in charge of our icecream machine and McCafé coffee/smoothie maintenance, was trained by Taylor to do the cleaning and maintenance and would often do all repairs I was able to do on it to prevent a call to Taylor. Couple of things to point out you're absolutely correct a lot of the downtime has to do with the heat cycle or if it wasn't cleaned. However, a lot of the stores that I would go to (my stores franchisee had many stores and would cycle me around to others stores to do said maintenance) tended to have older machines as well as shake and ice cream combos machines. And 4 hours was how long it took UNINTERRUPTED to clean it. often times I would be pulled from my cleaning to help with a rush or to hand out breaks for other employees. this added to the time it took. often times i would go in at 3am before the heatcycle, clean it, to bypass that days hea Part of the consequence of having both of those combined is that if one side broke often it would affect the other one. So if the hake machine side got overheated or overworked the whole machine would lock down. Also the cleaning point you brought up while extremely valid that it takes about four hours, this cleaning maintenance was only done once every two weeks. In fact McDonald's has/had an agreement with Taylor dating back since the beginning which states that they have exclusive rights to not have to clean their machines as frequently. So if you were in another restaurant with a taylor machine you would have to do this cleaning cycle every week. how gross the shake machine gets after 2 weeks is the reason I will never eat softserve ice-cream to this day unless its within 3 days of its cleaning. What this video doesn't show is what that machine looks like after one or two weeks. The nightly heating cycle would cause the shake mix to bake/build up onto the parts. It's this viscous goop that builds up over time and hardens even if done correctly. because the heat cycle gets so hot, its very much like if you boiled milk and that white gum like build up on the bottom of the pan. And we know that build up in mechanical devices can cause them to fail. This machine also doesn't show the pump apparatus that would be used to pump shake mix into the main cylinder under pressure. A lot of Taylor machines have these and they're a critical fail point. They're metal on the outside but their insides are made out of a hard plastic with gaskets that tend to get chewed up as they are moving and dont get relubbed until the by weakly cleaning. Which while are simple enough to replace might not be something your average McDonald's employee would know to look for and a franchisee for example might call Taylor to effectively replace a rubber gasket the size of a rubber band that's causing the whole thing to break. I cant think of any thing else but if you have any questions feel free to ask and ill do my best to answer.
Are franchisees contractually obligated to use Taylor machines, and if so how come no one has brought this before any federal prosecutor as an antitrust violation?
I am unclear on two points: 1) Why does it take four hours to clean? What's involved in this process? 2) What is the heat cycle doing? All I can think of is a typical freezer's defrost cycle, which is quick and doesn't cook the food inside.
You’re forgetting the part where Taylor acquired the Kytch device, reverse engineered it and started offering a paid service not as good as the Kytch while suing Kytch out of existence
It would have been good if this video referred to the 2021 article in _Wired_ “They Hacked McDonald’s Ice Cream Machines-and Started a Cold War,” which tells the whole sordid story of McDonald’s, Taylor and Kytch and then the follow-up story in 2022 “Ice Cream Machine Hackers Sue McDonald's for $900 Million.”
@@buizelmeme6288 Not really, McDonald's wanted to dismiss the trial but the judge ruled on favor on continuing the trial, so it's still ongoing until there's more updates on the trial, bud. It can really take years for trials like this to end, just gotta be patient and hope Kytch wins to set a precedent for rigth to repair.
@luigimario2xd@@buizelmeme6288 If you want Kytch to win then you should donate to their legal fund by any means necessary. Big companies will draw out litigation like this because they can afford to, and they know that small businesses or individuals *can't* ...
Well, they basically just cut and paste it from a documentary about the same topic. But at least they’re putting some effort into fixing it and changing the law
I’m surprised they didn’t even mention Johnny Harris’ extremely successful (viewcount-wise) RUclips documentary. He covered the entire topic so well that I was surprised anyone else thought that it was necessary to retell the story. I’d understand if this video was like “ok we all know the famous controversy about McDonald’s ice cream machine maintenance scheme, but we wanted to dig a little deeper…”
As a McDonalds employee in Australia I’ve personally never seen our ice cream machine break or require repairs outside of the time from 2-6am where it is in heat treatment. It seems like this is a uniquely American problem which might indicate malicious tampering of the machines by Taylor that make the machines break down more often. Edit: before this video I didn’t even know about the error codes on these machines as I’ve never seen one, and I’ve worked at McDonald’s for ~3 years
Mcdonalds Philippines also use the same Taylor ice Cream Machines. Really an American thing since this is the same issue with Samsung Refrigerators being junk in the USA but durable elsewhere.
@@Croissinate I checked tonight, our machinery/equipment is made by FRANKE, however the appearances of the machines is basically identical to those of Taylor in the US, which once again indicated tampering by Taylor since the same machines work fine when made by a different manufacturer
This was a great way to get an ice-cream machine for the office, and write it off as a business expense... "Jeff, that's your third soft serve today!" "I need to test this machine thoroughly! I'm just doing my job!"
@@thatonedynamitecuber "JEFF! THAT'S YOUR FREAKIN' 117TH SOFT SERVE TODAY! - You know what, I'll go on a cleaning cycle, then throw some error messages, so you don't get diabetes!"
As someone whose family runs a farm, I appreciate your work. Many issues on tractors and combines can only be fixed, or even diagnosed, with a specific laptop from the dealer, needing expensive service. And although we have a way around some of them, i agree that most farmers are not hackers.
I used to work for Baskin Robbin’s and had to learn to clean our soft serve machine, I have no doubt this company is designing these machines to break at some point based off how much they charge McDonald’s for repairs. Not one working for BR did I ever have a broken soft serve machine, not one time. Nor have i ever been to a BR that has had a broken soft serve machine, same with Dairy Queen, this is too much of a coincidence and i sense a law suit on the horizon
The breakdowns stem from the heat cycle that the McDonald’s machine uses for pasteurization. There are not many models with the heat cycle. Requiring machines without it to completely empty the Hopper and clean it thoroughly. The heated pasteurization cycle is the main reason McDonald’s doesn’t clean their machines but once every two weeks.
@@davidew98 the trade off doesn’t seem worth it to me, you either pay for the labor to clean the machine once a week or you pay the exorbitant repair cost when something inevitably goes wrong in exchange for cleaning once every 2 weeks
@@Djjolly037 mcdonalds has an exclusivity deal. mcdonalds has softserve offered on their menu, they have an exclusive manufacturer dealer that supplies it for a massive discount for new franchisees. they want feature parity with all other franchise owners to carve out business in their area so they gotta get it, meanwhile mcdonalds corporate offices ensure a vertical monopoly on their ice cream by only allowing taylor as their vendor and repair service. lawsuit is not on the table...
I've worked for several restaurants that had soft serve machines. I think a few were even Taylors. Mostly Chinese Alibaba machines though. They do break occasionally, but I was able to fix them just fine. When a compressor failed, our refrigeration guy was able to swap it out with no trouble. This situation is definitely something unscrupulous going on between Taylor and McD corporate.
I worked at McDonalds for 5 years in the 80s so I know a lot has changed. That being said, we were only 24 hours on weekends so one if the nightly tasks was to completely strip down the ice cream and shake machines and clean them. For an experienced person this took about 30-40 minutes to do both. We still had to clean them on weekends and from turning it off to stripping it all down, cleaning it and reassembly was maybe 2.5-3 hours including defrost. Under that routine maintenance (which at least at the store I worked at was sstrictly followed) I don't recall a single repair call-out. The worst issue was that the ice cream machine hit capacity and we had to stop serving it for 30 minutes or so. Those machines were probably 10 years old when I started working there and still worked perfectly when I left. I think this is a good example where adding technology does not make things better
As someone who's worked at McDonalds in the UK, the ice-cream machine is actually almost never broken. The employees tell you that it is because they/the shift before haven't cleaned the machine, or (as said in the video) it's on a heat cycle.
At the one I worked at it boiled down to simple laziness. As soon as the last adult manager left for the day the kids that they left in charge would start telling everyone that the machine was down.
I think McDonalds in the US has extremely high, seasonal demand for ice cream. A lot of places in the US get very hot in the summer and so people crave a lot of McDonalds ice cream during heatwaves. This leads to overheating and overloading machines which shut down during peak hours
Idk, I guess the people they hire at Wendy's are extremely good workers. Idk how McDonald's has an average of 30% of their machines down at franchises vs Wendy's who has less than 1%.
@@Camelotsmoon The other interesting bit is that Wendy's machine made by Kappus which owns Taylor as one of it's brands. Something tells me the relationship is much better between Kappus and Wendy's vs Taylor and Mcd's.
This is awesome, I hope this gets some of the lay people out there to understand how these sorts of laws really affect them, like when they can't get ice cream at a McD's. These sorts of bad laws, particularly the DMCA are abused non-stop now, usually protecting shady business practices to begin with, exactly like Taylor and John Deere using these exclusive contracts to service and repair their devices. When its obvious the product is flawed and requires external intervention due to a lack of support by the original manufacturer, there is no reason alternative repairs should not be allowed under any laws!
McDonald's makes more money in one month than you could spend in a lifetime. There's literally zero excuse for their ice cream machines being down so often. Wendy's doesn't have this problem and Dairy Queen doesn't have this problem. Why spend money on ice cream machines when they don't won't and you can't make money off of them. They probably lose MILLIONS in revenue every day because they can't sell ice cream to customers and they aren't doing anything about it. If it's the ice cream maker supplier that's the problem, CHANGE SUPPLIERS. If it's employee, train/fire/hire your employees. While right to repair laws are severely lacking, it's McDonald's own fault for outsourcing and/or going with an inferior product. Either make your own machines, or get better ones that don't have the same problems.
Context: McDonalds is NOT a restaurateur, their primary business is land and rent from that land. Conveniently, most McDonalds are FRANCHISE locations and McDonalds the corporation doesnt care if a franchise has problems with the REQUIRED equipment. McDonalds and Taylor have had a LONG relationship because these machines working or not makes one of the two money at the EXPENSE of the people who run the franchise. This is why it is important to pass Right to Repair. This particular relationship Taylor has with Mc Donalds is racketeering and it should be stopped.
Bullcrap. Francisees in the USoA are free to buy a Carpigiani machine (that fails less and is easier to maintain) instead of a Taylor. But, to save a few bucks upfront, most francisees get the Taylor one, even those francisees close to a Carpigiani service center. So... ¿Is only McD being evil here? ¿Or is it also francisees saving pennies and losing Dollars?
@@williamyf Don't be daft, much less an apologist for a corporation as large/successful as McDonalds. When a franchisee goes to open a store, they get the whole list of steps to do so, one of which is of course the "recommended" equipment to purchase/use. What do you think McDonalds corporate recommends? And why would a franchisee question it? Surely McDonalds wants them to be successful... That's in everyone's best interests, right? And even if it's a question of dollars/cents, wouldn't you feel pretty silly choosing a more expensive machine that McDonalds themselves don't recommend? Come on...
I remember the design difference the Taylor made ice cream machine had for McDonalds, vs other fast food restaurants like Wendy's, was to be able to re-pasteurize the milk that was already in there. So if there was left over milk from the previous day, it will get pasteurized again so it's made safe. While the machines at restaurants like Wendy's, you'd just throw out the milk. Another reason that McDonalds is ok with Taylor being the only company to call when something is not working with their machines, is that McDonalds is also a share holder in the company. McDonalds makes money from this business relationship being a share holder in Taylor when it comes to getting dividend payments from Taylor. This kind of monopoly shouldn't be allowed.
I've heard that the other ice cream machines McDonalds restaurants use are made in Italy. Those ones are supposed to be more reliable, but when they break down, it takes a week to ship the parts from Europe to America. I would imagine the shipping time from Italy to Germany isn't too long.
From the UK, where this issue isn't as bad as in the US. The McDonald's / Taylor Repair racket is a well known problem for years, glad ur taking up this fight.
This by and large isn't an issue outside of the USA and maybe Canada, because Taylor does not have the 24/7 technicians available over here. I'm in continental Europe, my sister owns 2 McD franchises, the ice cream machine in her McDs are never on the fritz and when they are they have 2 manuals with the machine. One is the Operator's Manual and most of the error codes in that book say to call the Taylor technician. The other is the Technician's Manual, which has in-depth explanations of all procedures, hidden menu features and repairs for the machine. It even includes a parts list and instructions on how to order them from the local supplier. It's the same machine they get in the US, so the problem isn't the machine. It's the UI/UX of the machine. Taylor is purposely obfuscating and hiding things in order to get that juicy "recurring income" from the service calls. So US McD franchisees only get the owner/operator manual, but everywhere else in the world they also get the technician/maintenance manual. You could probably find it on the internet somewhere, but the machine keeps a log of access to the hidden maintenance menu, so if you have to call in a tech later for something else, they'll know you've bypassed them earlier and thus may not want to repair without first screwing you over for some sort of additional "reset to default" thing they'll claim to have to do.
Im allso pretty sure, with in the EU (as UK ones was), it was made illigal to have a monopoly on service. Just like automakers cant void a warrenty, even if the car was serviced on a non-maker workshop/garage.
@@ImpetuzViscus the catch there is that many consumer protection laws do not apply to companies. Internally the machines are mostly "industrial lego" that can be serviced by any technician qualified to do that type of work. It's just the UI part on the front that's McD specific. It's also the only part that you have to order through McD corporate, everything else can be bought through a Taylor reseller or from any vendor that sells that kind of industrial lego component. There's nothing inherently wrong with the machines, it's not bad design or anything like that. It's just the software that locks US based McD franchisees into a service contract. And it also has to do with the terms of the financial lease of the kitchen equipment, as the restaurant doesn't actually own it, McD has a rather large say in what is and isn't allowed with their property.
I was the technician for Showbiz Pizza Time Theatre for 6 years, we had an older (non electronic) version of these machines, ice cream (soft serve, technically ice milk) was ready to dispense about 30 minutes after turning the machine on. These machines while precision were very simple and the only time ours was "down" was when employees at night would drop the mixer drum (spun inside the freezing chamber) and they would bend it, it was a tight tolerance and if bent it was expensive to replace. In my 6 years there we never once called Taylor to come fix the machine and it was in service 99% of the time (probably closer to 99.5%). The only 2 reasons it was ever out was the reason I mentioned and when management forgot to purchase enough 'mix' for the machine. I have watched the whole thing about the new machines for a few years now and I think that Taylor should be massively sued by McDonalds and I have no idea why such a large user like that would put up with these issues unless they get a kickback from Taylor on each repair (to franchises). Taylor could fix and prevent these issues with just a firmware update if they wanted to.
it's likely that mcdonalds also gets a cut from the service calls as well... or something. like mentioned in the video, taylor and mcdonalds have been working together for as long as they've basically existed (well, as long as mcdonalds has existed, taylor has been around for a few decades more) so all of this likely is done with mcdonalds executive's permission
It's worth noting that McDonald's isn't directly impacted by Taylor's practices thanks to their franchise model. They have an enormous amount of power over their franchisees, but ultimately a store that's losing sales is the small business owner's problem, not an issue for Corporate.
As noted in the video, McDonalds isn't going to sue Taylor. They're working together. Taylor sells other machines to other franchises that don't break down as often. If McDonalds wanted, they could upgrade to a more functional machine that doesn't leave their franchise owners stranded so often. The truth is that this problem is pure corruption, and the franchise owners are the ones getting hurt. The franchise owners need to sue McDonalds, but that would likely mean giving up their franchise location because of the lawsuit. McDonalds is going to retaliate against the franchise owners if they try to fight back against these practices. The only semi-good news is that McDonalds is likely going to become the next subway. Basically, an irrelevant and dying business. They've already had a reputation for cheap and crappy food, but their reputation as openly hostile to franchise owners is becoming very well known. Their hostility towards franchise owners is becoming a lot more of a serious threat to their existence. It's causing franchise owners to simply walk away. If enough owners leave, McDonalds locations will start closing, because McDonalds can't fill those vacancies. As locations close, McDonalds might do what Subway did, and become even more hostile towards the existing owners, to try and fill the missing quarterly profits by taking more money from franchise owners, leading to a vicious death spiral. Subway was once larger than McDonalds in America, and I bet that soon McDonalds will no longer be the top dog in franchise restaurants. Right now, if you have the ~2 million dollars needed to open a McDonalds restaurant, you can make the same yearly profit simply investing in government bonds. I expect that the change in the economic environment and exposé's like these will cause a lot of franchise owners to cash out.
Others have said the same, but reiteration is important. McDonalds does not own every store, most are franchises. As a whole, McDonalds is an image, and they let people buy permission to use their image and branding. As part of a franchise, you have to agree to follow certain rules. Who you buy from, menu items, and layout are all determined by the company. You're renting their name and formula, nothing more. So let me put it like this: if you were able to write a contract that forces another person who you have by the balls to only use the ludicrously expensive icecream machines, and that icecream company happened to pay you for their contract, why wouldn't you? You and the icecream company are fine, neither of you has any risk. The risk is all on the franchise partner.
I think this type of video needs to go viral to show ppl how right to repair is essential for everyday professionals and not only nerds who tinker their electronic devices. It highlights how anti repair designs are just a money grab by usually already wealthy corporations.
"I want an ice cream. Let me just hop over the counter, battle the McDonald's employees, dodge two Apple pies, fix the machine, and grab an Oreo McFlurry before the drive-through worker starts beating me with a cashier."
Or you know, just go to a Culvers, Dairy Queen, Carvelle, Baskin Robins, Local Ice Cream place with some variation on "Milk King" or "Dairy Whip" or "Legally not Dairy Queen" or whatever other slack ass name they came up with. 5 Guys, Wendy's, Local Dairy Co-op place, local Hippster Ice Cream shop, Local yuppie Ice Cream "Parlour" or Ice Cream "Shoppe", Denny's, Friendlies, Handel's, The actual good local place that everyone has known for like 60 years that always is busy, the SUPERMARKET.
I worked during McD's during college years i actually managed the store and had to order parts/repairs. Our machine was often not broken but out of use. This was because at the end of the night (about 2hs before closing) we would put the machine into a cleaning cycle. In the morning when we fired the machine up it took a while to get down to temp. (around 4hs, we opened at 6am it was ready around 10:30am after we checked it was all good and got around to stocking it) This is the bulk of the time the machine is not working anyway, most people assume or get told its "not working". There are times where the machine does go bad but these in my experience were not that common. Usually we would have to lodge a job on the system for repair and someone came out within 24hs, maybe it would be fixed, maybe a part was ordered and it was up and running in a week. This repair time though was standard for all stuff really. Other stores who use these machines and are 24/h often don't have the issues because they run the cleaning cycle/start during early hours of the night (so less people complain or notice), or after they close and before they open.
Taylor makes a lot of different ice cream machines for other fast food places. The issue is that none of those places are forced to use any one machine form one manufacturer, but Mcds forces their restaurants to use this one specific machine and they can't use anything else removing competition and incentivizing Taylor to make a machine that barely works so they can squeeze more profit from service calls. If Mcds would allow their restaurants to use that's say 1 of 3 machines from different companies it wouldn't be an issue and my guess that's what's going on in Europe. There is a good documentary by Johnny Harris on why the Mcds ice cream machines in the US if you want more info or sources
This was the best video about ice cream ice ever seen. Seriously love the work and advocacy you guys do. It's inspiring and honestly great publicity! I hope the changes you are asking if Congress go through, especially for making a repair exception
I worked at McDonald's in the 80's, and the soft serve machine failure for the most part, was always due to overheating, due to massive quantities being served during peak summer hours. We did cones and sundaes, but the heat exchanger could only take so much, and changing a liquid to a semi-solid takes quite a bit of cooling to do. Everyday, we were taught to disassemble the parts that touch the soft serve, mixer, agitator, auger assembly, and run sanitzer solution through them to prevent bacteria. So, for the most part, they aren't really broken, they are just taxed to the extent where heat buildup is too much, and it literally needs to cool down.
Another thing worth mentioning, many McDonald's executives own shares in Taylor, so the profits they make from service go directly into their pockets, disincentivizing cheaper repair.
This is uniquely a US problem, as I've never heard anyone talking about or seen a "broken" icecream machine here in Europe. It actually really confused me when I heard about it, as it was never a problem in my frame of reference.
Kidding me!? In Sweden the ice cream machines are ALWAYS down at McDonald's. I've never encountered a problem with their competitors. I've easily been denied ice cream or milk shakes 50+ times at McDonald's.
definitely not a US problem. maybe your country is so small you only have one McDonald there and somehow that one always has its icecream machine funtional.
employee: ey boss can we get an ice cream machine for work? boss: only if you can make it reflect our business vision employee: hold my iFixit screwdriver!
Same in Australia. Never in my 29 years of being alive have I had that issue. I have had the issue of them literally running out of ice cream though (was a very hot summers afternoon over a decade ago).
American blacks don't take care of the machines and break them. This has never been a problem in my 99% white hometown. I lived in Japan for three years as well and went to McDonald's once a week. Was never a problem there either
interesting to be able to see the fabled machine up close. it's worth noting that Johnny Harris did a thorough and in-depth piece of reporting on this a few years ago which is essential viewing.
American blacks don't take care of the machines and break them. This has never been a problem in my 99% white hometown. I lived in Japan for three years as well and went to McDonald's once a week. Was never a problem there either
I'm sure there are other factors, like different laws, in these countries that affect how they can repair the machines that don't exist in America. Also I'm sure your 99% white hometown isn't as populated therefore the ice cream machines aren't constantly in use and don't break as fast.
@@JohnM-cd4ou Considering it's the only fast food place in town, there's probably not a lot of people around since no other big franchise has decided it was profitable to build there. I'm sure "absolutely packed" means something different
I worked for half a year in a different burger fast food chain restaurant. We had this exact ice cream machine, and surprisingly we never had any problems with it. It was surprisingly the most reliable machine we had there. I'm not saying that McDonalds has a different model with a slightly different code, that makes it break down more, just a fun anecdote.
The fact that these machines overheat seems like a design flaw - on the part of both Taylor (for not providing adequate cooling, a user-friendly interface and/or not communicating the cooling requirements to McD corporate designers) AND McD corporate in their kitchen design for not understanding how to locate these machines to provide adequate cooling and for not demanding that the machines be easier to use and repair. If I were a franchisee having to pay the service bills, I'd consider sending the machine back and take ice cream off my menu.
I'm pretty sure there'd be a contract stopping you from doing exactly that and forcing you to use Taylor machines exclusively. Yes, the machines do seem badly engineered and I don't think that's a coincidence.
4:30 don't forget Taylor performed corporate espionage; they got a Kitch unit through a McDonalds exec, cloned it, and sold their own (after Kitch blocked all Taylor's other attempts to buy one directy or indirectly for years).
Aside from the DMCA, Taylor has a deal with McDonald's that prohibits franchise owners from fixing their machines. Kytch devices on a McDonald's machine will get their franchise pulled. Meanwhile, Taylor got hold of a Kytch device and shortly afterward came out with their own version ... which might help some, but it'll probably also be lucrative for Taylor.
I spent almost 5 years of my life working in several different restaurants from them (netherlands), and I've never seen or had a broken machine. Heat cycle has nothing to do with being broken, and I think last time someone made a video on this it just sounded like people don't do maintenance/cleaning properly. I've seen the overheating issue, but that was once a year on the busiest day in the middle of summer
Johnny Harris made a video about this about 2 years back that is basically my Bible for the McDonald’s ice cream machine issue. I’ve shared that video dozens of times when this conversation comes up on social media (I’m THAT “right to repair nut” in my immediate circle of influence 😅)
Vendors do this by design. This is extremely prevalent in medical industry where vendors lock devices and applications down, force a support contract so all you can do i call them for support, even though you purchased the software and have the staff on hand to support it, you still have to purchase support contract from the vendor to get repairs done. Usually they hide behind "FDA regulations" to force this.
I actually bought one of these from an auction at a local mc donald's which closed down. I've been using it every summer for three years now and it still works. Sometimes it will give me an error message or two but usually it just continues it's cycle. Cleaning is a pain though and I can see how that may cause additional downtime.
I thought this was an April fools video, but this was actually an amazing video showing why right to repair is so important! Keep up the great fight! You guys are doing awesome
One thing that wasn't covered here is how the machines will often go into a lockout state that requires an "authorized service technician" to repair them. I worked at Burger King 20 years ago, and while our machines were usually quite resilient, they would still sometimes fail. The most common reason they would fail is that someone would overfill the hopper, which prevented the heat exchanger from keeping the mix at the correct temperature. However, when this happened, the machine would give an opaque error code and would lock out the machine, requiring a technician to repair it. Getting in a technician would sometimes takes weeks. It's easy to see how this could be unintentional. After all, it is important that the machine keeps the product cool, and if it can't, that's a sign that something is wrong. Failing to keep it cool makes the product potentially unsafe to serve. So the safe thing to do is to lock it out, right? But the issue is how it all comes together. The machine doesn't realize the hopper is overfull or that the machine is overworked - it just says "I'm failing to keep it cold" and shuts down as if it were broken. The user is not made aware of this or given an opportunity to rectify it - they can't even power cycle it do a full cleaning cycle to try again. The technicians sometimes informed people of the cause and the management sometimes passed along the message, but when the people working at 3AM are kids who come and go every few months, that kind of knowledge is lost. If someone isn't aware and gets the machine into this state, it takes the whole thing offline for at least days if not weeks. And this is where the issue lies. There are many ways Taylor could fix this. The machine could have more sensors and be more intelligent so that it can tell the difference between being overworked and having an outright failure. The manual and error codes could be clearer so that it were easier to teach new people how to use it correctly and how to avoid the issue. The software could be written specifically to handle this use case, providing a way for operators to go through a full cleaning cycle and get back to a safe and working state instead of going into a full lock-out that requires a technician. But at the end of the day, Taylor hasn't done anything like this in the past 20 years. The still issues still exist with all machines. The same common and avoidable failure modes and overbearing lockouts leave operators with no choice but to pay a ransom to Taylor to service their machine. It's clear that Taylor has no interest in making this any easier. Not only do they not fix the underlying issue, but they also do everything in their power to keep others from fixing it for them. Their insistence on "authorized service technicians", the closely guarded secret that is the service manual they provide to these technicians, and the efforts they have made to sue and shutdown anyone who would shed light on how to fix and maintain these machines for themselves. This is exactly what right to repair is all about. When you buy a machine, it's yours, and a company shouldn't be able to hold you to ransom for daily maintenance and operations. Taylor goes out of their way to not only withhold the necessary information from you, but they also use the law as a weapon against anyone who would try to help.
In the past I've cleaned the Taylor c602(? I think it's called) for 5 years. Sharing my experience: @6:50 there's no "overheating resulting in mush." If running lots of product in a short period of time and the vanilla shake mix in the top hopper has no time to freeze/solidify in the bottom barrel, it comes out liquidy. The machine never broke down, it just had melty ice cream. If it did truly overheat and refuse to operate, I'd suspect not properly cleaned or broken/worn parts that should be replaced. Gaskets, o-rings, scrapper blades (there's a 3mo and 6mo schedule) The part after that is true tho, McDonald's employees have much limited access and allowability to fully take apart and repair the machine apart from the daily/weekly cleaning process
it's called putting computers on a machine that doesn't need computers. they are designed to fail and be non repairable unless you spend the money to get a tech out to fix it. I am an HVAC tech and I see it in everything heating and air-conditioning, they put tons of sensors and computers in machines that really don't need it and it turns an easy repair and a $20 part into a very difficult repair and a $500 part that is IF you can find it. they want stuff to fail just past the warranty so you have to buy another one and they make the parts so expensive it's almost cheaper to buy a new one
diagnostics are pretty invaluable for machines like this, it just happens that this specific model is intentionally obscure compared the ones taylor sells other resteraunts
@@gruntlord6 the only reason you need diagnostics is because it's packed with computers and sensors it doesn't really need. it's made overly complicated on purpose. all you need to make a simple ice cream machine is a compressor, evaporator and condenser, old school mechanical thermostat, a motor to run the agitator and another to run the screw that mixes and pushes the ice cream out. when it breaks you could troubleshoot it with a $5 volt/ohm meter and a basic knowledge of electricity
@@gruntlord6 Nope. The old style Tayor's are perfectly safe, if there's a cooling issue the machine just doesn't make Icecream before it's a problem. They are also highly reliable. McDonald's switched to these (they asked Taylor to make them) for the computer diagnostics to save on diagnostic time, and labor hours needed for cleaning.
Another incentive for McDonalds to have Taylor techs do the repairs, is because one of the biggest shareholders of both companies is the same investment firm, so having Taylor getting all that money from the repairs helps their bottom line.
Thank you for fighting back against these greedy business practices! It’s a disgusting way to make money and it’s about time it stops and people are free to do what they want with their property no matter who made it.
It's probably a case of their business requiring their machines to work. For some reason, McDonalds doesn't care whether their machines are up reliably, or how much it costs to fix them. For a shop that makes ice cream it's sole business, the machines MUST be up all the time and not cost thousands to repair regularly. That means either they have backups available, their employees are trained to troubleshoot them, or they simply pay more upfront for machines that are extremely durable and reliable.
You also should remember that most McDonalds restaurants operate 24/7, meaning that often the machine is in almost constant operation up until its heat-treat cycle. It requires a full brush clean every 7days, if it is not put together, lubed and cleaned correctly something will break or it will not dispense correctly. Likely most local ice-cream places clean their machines daily and have the time before starting their workday to get it in working condition.
@@MaxUnix And McDonalds should remember to schedule actual down time because I’ll bet there’s very little call for ice cream at 4am. And I also bet there’s not a ton for an overnighter to do in all the time between orders. With their digital screen menus, changing what’s available is now trivial.
You did miss one bombshell that was went over in a documentary, RUclips video about broken ice cream machines from a couple years ago. Taylor, along with McDonald’s corporation colluded and paid a couple of franchisees to go out and buy a kitch device for two of their machines and turned around and took the kitch devices breaching the license and contract with the kitch company. Before that they attempted to buy kitch devices themselves, but Kitch, was on to them and knew who they were. They did not catch on to Taylor taking the kitch devices off these machines until they noticed their device is going off-line and not reporting back. I believe it went as far as the devices started reporting back from Taylor‘s headquarters but I can’t remember. Taylor proceeded to reverse engineer that device, and then I think they turned around and sued kitch to prevent them from allowing their devices on their machines. After they took care of Kitch, they turned around and put out press release of an approved device that they were in the process of developing basically similar to kitch
I think that since spring 2022 anyone would have serious problems getting McD's or Burger King's Ice Cream in Russia. I think you can get Вкусно - и точка, but not McD's. 😛 ;-)
@@williamyf there is practically no difference between Vkusno I Tochka and McDonald's. Same restaraunts same menu slightly changed recipies like bigmac or bigtasty, but almost the same taste, kfc turned back to rostics like it used to be before they bought KFC franchise but also same taste and dishes as kfc. Burger King hasn't changed.
okay this seems a problem in US only. I have travelled most of Europe and never faced this issue, also in India and Japan, I have never faced it. I mostly go to McDs only for the IceCreams 😁
American blacks don't take care of the machines and break them. This has never been a problem in my 99% white hometown. I lived in Japan for three years as well and went to McDonald's once a week. Was never a problem there either.
\I've watched a video on this before, someone did make a kit to be able to fix it, the issue is that McDonald's owns most of Taylor... so they get a kick back from franchisees having to use the repair service. I applaud you for taking your time to do this, but no one who owns a McDonalds franchise will risk it.
Here in Scotland its a big issue. They are frequently broken and can be for weeks at a time. The branches don't seem to give a Monkeys and just give out excuses. I was aware of this issue, I can't believe it's still going on, McDonalds are taking us for mugs!
If you get a DMCA exemption for McD ice cream machines, it wouldn't surprise me if your team received free ice cream for life from McD franchisees. Well played!
Yes. My randomly bought mcdonalds ice cream machine located in my basement needs this video. I just need to find the ice cream recipe on the dark web and I could be the ice cream king of my neighbourhood 🤴🏻
It's deliberate, for sure. Years ago (early-mid 80s) I worked for a company making electronic security systems, and they had a very primitive wireless alarm system in which each remote sensor was powered by a 9v MN1603 battery. Owners had to sign up to a service contract which among other things would replace these batteries every 18 months which was about their useful lifetime, given the poor design of the electronics. (And due to the need for numerous sensors, one per 'protected' door or window, the batteries were basically always needing replacement, all the time). As an engineer I was tasked with designing a replacement for this system which needed much more capability and to be actually secure to some extent. By that time technology had moved on and it would have been possible to effectively build-in a soldered battery with a lifetime of around 7 years, and then the whole sensor, which was far smaller as a result, could be replaced. We proceeded with the design to a point when the marketers and the other elements of the company started to work on it. The battery idea was nixed on the basis that it would kill the lucrative service contracts, even though it offered a far, far better customer experience from the constant 'low battery, call service' warnings. So the 9v batteries came back and basically ruined the project. That's corporate culture for you.
No way there are THAT many flathead screws in a piece of equipment made after 1950. That’s insane. Other than the ones that were also hex nuts, it’s another FU to everybody working on the machine.
I worked at Chickfila as a manager and our machines were rarely down if cleaned properly every night. I don't know what brand it was but it was very similar to this Taylor version. It didn't take long in comparison to start up, as there was no 4 hour heat cycle. Cleaning and setting up daily took like 30 minutes at most, while taking food orders. Crazy to think about how I got paid $11.50/hr as a manager and never had the machine broken and Taylor charges $300/hr or more because they have a Mcdonalds monopoly.
I worked at McDonald's for four years back in the late 90's. Our soft serve machine NEVER broke down. Here's the catch: It was an older machine and we had to breakdown the machine and clean it every other night. But that's the thing, routine maintenance had to be done regularly.
I worked at DQ for 6 years. We had Stoltein and Duke machines. Major differences: no heat cycle (ice cream mix was stored in a separate refrigerator and was already pasteurized) so it was only 5-10 minutes from startup until ready, basically no electronics, and water cooled so they never ever overheated. They were also easy and relatively intuitive to disassemble and clean/repair. Our main machine broke only once while I worked there because the compressor burned up, but it was more than 20 years old at the time. No other downtime while we were open.
The really bad part is Taylor does make great machines that don't have these problems (Wendies Frosty machines are Taylor and they work fantastic) but McDonalds has this toxic loop where the owners of McDonalds also partly own taylor, so McDonalds MANDATES this specific broken machine be used and then has this horrid contract repair system to essentially scam their franchisees.
Franchise chains are highly motivated to hamstring the individual franchise owners. Franchise owners suffer too much, they can't run a successful branch and the location fails, which is bad for corporate. However, if they start getting too successful, they get less dependent on the brand and there is a raised risk of either getting more independent within their own store or even outright disenfranchising to create an independent competitor. Stuff like this that locks them into contractual dependency on the brand is exactly what McDonald's wants and is probably done on purpose.
They own the supplier, part of the same holding corporation. Just another way to get a extra load of franchise fee, without calling it a franchise fee, from the franchisors. More profit. Very likely you will find the machines that go to fully owned stores are a slightly different firmware level, so that they will have some more understandable errors, or will simply limit the amount of product you can pull through when it is getting hot. Plus the fully owned stores likely have 3 or more of them, as they can then run one through the cleaning cycle per 8 hour shift, and have all 3 for peak hours. Corporate will easily absorb the extra machine cost, as they will not have no ice cream or shakes at all, making this location more popular.
@@battmarn Same mix is used in the ice cream and the Mcflurry, and the shakes. Just a different machine, so the margins are a lot bigger, as you are selling a blend of ice and air.
I had a McDonald’s employee by my parents’ house tell me that they only run it during certain hours of the day, like usually it’s either noon to 7pm 3pm-9pm, or noon to 9pm during the summer. They just know when they get the largest chunk of people asking for ice cream They do the same thing with their shakes, if I go there after 10pm it’s almost a guarantee they have turned the shake machine off for the night
I really liked the title of the video and just rushed quickly to the video's upload date to see if it wasn't April Fools. Everyone's glad iFixit is taking this matter seriously.
This is the tpe of Video that is not only repairing it also tells a storyy about it .. i like that people more and more understand why a right to repair its so important.
Trying to fix a McDonald's ice cream machine is like attempting a rocket launch with a bicycle pump. Frustrating, baffling, and you're probably going to end up with a sticky mess
There is a very extensive video on these machines that is over an hour long that details just how predatory these machines are. It really is kind of insane to me that with technology going in the direction that it is that we are not seeing a new portion of the government opening which only focuses on research of these things, the products that are being made, and the practices that are occurring. There is no reason companies and the people should be having to fight this fight. I heavily appreciate what you are doing. At this point I see your company as more of an investment towards stopping these practices rather than just a tool. I may not just know about it but it would be great to see ways to donate to your legal work.
I used to work in a UK Mc Donalds and our machine was not a Taylor. It had very few issues and worked pretty much all of the time. It was one of the combo machines that did both ice cream and milkshakes. The franchisee that owned the restaurant was forced to buy a different machine (still not a taylor) by Mc Donalds whilst I was there and the new one was a total pice of junk, breaking all the time, random error codes, etc.
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
I worked for Mcdonalds for many years and was the main person in charge of our icecream machine and McCafé coffee/smoothie maintenance, was trained by Taylor to do the cleaning and maintenance and would often do all repairs I was able to do on it to prevent a call to Taylor. Couple of things to point out you're absolutely correct a lot of the downtime has to do with the heat cycle or if it wasn't cleaned. However, a lot of the stores that I would go to (my stores franchisee had many stores and would cycle me around to others stores to do said maintenance) tended to have older machines as well as shake and ice cream combos machines. And 4 hours was how long it took UNINTERRUPTED to clean it. often times I would be pulled from my cleaning to help with a rush or to hand out breaks for other employees. this added to the time it took. often times i would go in at 3am before the heatcycle, clean it, to bypass that days hea
Part of the consequence of having both of those combined is that if one side broke often it would affect the other one. So if the hake machine side got overheated or overworked the whole machine would lock down. Also the cleaning point you brought up while extremely valid that it takes about four hours, this cleaning maintenance was only done once every two weeks. In fact McDonald's has/had an agreement with Taylor dating back since the beginning which states that they have exclusive rights to not have to clean their machines as frequently. So if you were in another restaurant with a taylor machine you would have to do this cleaning cycle every week. how gross the shake machine gets after 2 weeks is the reason I will never eat softserve ice-cream to this day unless its within 3 days of its cleaning.
What this video doesn't show is what that machine looks like after one or two weeks. The nightly heating cycle would cause the shake mix to bake/build up onto the parts. It's this viscous goop that builds up over time and hardens even if done correctly. because the heat cycle gets so hot, its very much like if you boiled milk and that white gum like build up on the bottom of the pan. And we know that build up in mechanical devices can cause them to fail.
This machine also doesn't show the pump apparatus that would be used to pump shake mix into the main cylinder under pressure. A lot of Taylor machines have these and they're a critical fail point. They're metal on the outside but their insides are made out of a hard plastic with gaskets that tend to get chewed up as they are moving and dont get relubbed until the by weakly cleaning. Which while are simple enough to replace might not be something your average McDonald's employee would know to look for and a franchisee for example might call Taylor to effectively replace a rubber gasket the size of a rubber band that's causing the whole thing to break.
I cant think of any thing else but if you have any questions feel free to ask and ill do my best to answer.
This was very informative, thank you!
Are franchisees contractually obligated to use Taylor machines, and if so how come no one has brought this before any federal prosecutor as an antitrust violation?
I am unclear on two points:
1) Why does it take four hours to clean? What's involved in this process?
2) What is the heat cycle doing? All I can think of is a typical freezer's defrost cycle, which is quick and doesn't cook the food inside.
Perfect ... I can never enjoy a milkshake from McDonalds ever again.
Sounds like mc Donald's is getting scam by Taylor
You’re forgetting the part where Taylor acquired the Kytch device, reverse engineered it and started offering a paid service not as good as the Kytch while suing Kytch out of existence
It would have been good if this video referred to the 2021 article in _Wired_ “They Hacked McDonald’s Ice Cream Machines-and Started a Cold War,” which tells the whole sordid story of McDonald’s, Taylor and Kytch and then the follow-up story in 2022 “Ice Cream Machine Hackers Sue McDonald's for $900 Million.”
can't taylor be sued by engineering flaw?
Dang, Kytch loss? Nooooooooooo
@@buizelmeme6288 Not really, McDonald's wanted to dismiss the trial but the judge ruled on favor on continuing the trial, so it's still ongoing until there's more updates on the trial, bud. It can really take years for trials like this to end, just gotta be patient and hope Kytch wins to set a precedent for rigth to repair.
@luigimario2xd@@buizelmeme6288 If you want Kytch to win then you should donate to their legal fund by any means necessary. Big companies will draw out litigation like this because they can afford to, and they know that small businesses or individuals *can't* ...
I honestly thought this was a joke video, but I’m impressed with the steps y’all are taking re right to repair! Keep it up!!
Well, they basically just cut and paste it from a documentary about the same topic. But at least they’re putting some effort into fixing it and changing the law
I’m surprised they didn’t even mention Johnny Harris’ extremely successful (viewcount-wise) RUclips documentary. He covered the entire topic so well that I was surprised anyone else thought that it was necessary to retell the story. I’d understand if this video was like “ok we all know the famous controversy about McDonald’s ice cream machine maintenance scheme, but we wanted to dig a little deeper…”
@@davidswanson5669i never watched Harris's video on this. I stopped watching his content bc i often felt emotionally manipulated while watching.
If you don't know ifixit than you had never fix anything in your life lol
Yeah. I had to go back and see if it was an ad or or joke or what.
As a McDonalds employee in Australia I’ve personally never seen our ice cream machine break or require repairs outside of the time from 2-6am where it is in heat treatment. It seems like this is a uniquely American problem which might indicate malicious tampering of the machines by Taylor that make the machines break down more often.
Edit: before this video I didn’t even know about the error codes on these machines as I’ve never seen one, and I’ve worked at McDonald’s for ~3 years
Not a common problem in Europe either. Personally I have never experienced it.
Mcdonalds Philippines also use the same Taylor ice Cream Machines. Really an American thing since this is the same issue with Samsung Refrigerators being junk in the USA but durable elsewhere.
Hastings Victoria is constantly broken down
McDonald's ice cream machines in Australia are made by Multiplex. That would be why.
@@Croissinate I checked tonight, our machinery/equipment is made by FRANKE, however the appearances of the machines is basically identical to those of Taylor in the US, which once again indicated tampering by Taylor since the same machines work fine when made by a different manufacturer
This was a great way to get an ice-cream machine for the office, and write it off as a business expense...
"Jeff, that's your third soft serve today!"
"I need to test this machine thoroughly! I'm just doing my job!"
*ten hours later*
"JEFF! THAT'S YOUR FREAKIN' 117TH SOFT SERVE TODAY! DO YOU REALLY WANT DIABETES?"
@@thatonedynamitecuber BUT LOOK, BOB, ITS NO LONGER ICE CREAM AFTER 117 CONES. WE HAVE ✨ LEARNED ✨
@@thatonedynamitecuber "JEFF! THAT'S YOUR FREAKIN' 117TH SOFT SERVE TODAY! - You know what, I'll go on a cleaning cycle, then throw some error messages, so you don't get diabetes!"
I think that there is a conspiracy. I just want to do my own peer review, sir!
*** Silently watches from cubicle as Jeff spends day OD-ing on Soft Serve ***
As someone whose family runs a farm, I appreciate your work. Many issues on tractors and combines can only be fixed, or even diagnosed, with a specific laptop from the dealer, needing expensive service. And although we have a way around some of them, i agree that most farmers are not hackers.
This is why I build my own tractors from parts I fabricate myself
I used to work for Baskin Robbin’s and had to learn to clean our soft serve machine, I have no doubt this company is designing these machines to break at some point based off how much they charge McDonald’s for repairs. Not one working for BR did I ever have a broken soft serve machine, not one time. Nor have i ever been to a BR that has had a broken soft serve machine, same with Dairy Queen, this is too much of a coincidence and i sense a law suit on the horizon
The breakdowns stem from the heat cycle that the McDonald’s machine uses for pasteurization. There are not many models with the heat cycle. Requiring machines without it to completely empty the Hopper and clean it thoroughly. The heated pasteurization cycle is the main reason McDonald’s doesn’t clean their machines but once every two weeks.
@@davidew98 the trade off doesn’t seem worth it to me, you either pay for the labor to clean the machine once a week or you pay the exorbitant repair cost when something inevitably goes wrong in exchange for cleaning once every 2 weeks
@@Djjolly037 mcdonalds has an exclusivity deal.
mcdonalds has softserve offered on their menu, they have an exclusive manufacturer dealer that supplies it for a massive discount for new franchisees. they want feature parity with all other franchise owners to carve out business in their area so they gotta get it, meanwhile mcdonalds corporate offices ensure a vertical monopoly on their ice cream by only allowing taylor as their vendor and repair service.
lawsuit is not on the table...
@@Djjolly037 And not getting icecream sales while the machine is down waiting for repair.
I've worked for several restaurants that had soft serve machines. I think a few were even Taylors. Mostly Chinese Alibaba machines though. They do break occasionally, but I was able to fix them just fine. When a compressor failed, our refrigeration guy was able to swap it out with no trouble. This situation is definitely something unscrupulous going on between Taylor and McD corporate.
I worked at McDonalds for 5 years in the 80s so I know a lot has changed. That being said, we were only 24 hours on weekends so one if the nightly tasks was to completely strip down the ice cream and shake machines and clean them. For an experienced person this took about 30-40 minutes to do both.
We still had to clean them on weekends and from turning it off to stripping it all down, cleaning it and reassembly was maybe 2.5-3 hours including defrost.
Under that routine maintenance (which at least at the store I worked at was sstrictly followed) I don't recall a single repair call-out. The worst issue was that the ice cream machine hit capacity and we had to stop serving it for 30 minutes or so. Those machines were probably 10 years old when I started working there and still worked perfectly when I left.
I think this is a good example where adding technology does not make things better
As someone who's worked at McDonalds in the UK, the ice-cream machine is actually almost never broken. The employees tell you that it is because they/the shift before haven't cleaned the machine, or (as said in the video) it's on a heat cycle.
At the one I worked at it boiled down to simple laziness. As soon as the last adult manager left for the day the kids that they left in charge would start telling everyone that the machine was down.
I think McDonalds in the US has extremely high, seasonal demand for ice cream. A lot of places in the US get very hot in the summer and so people crave a lot of McDonalds ice cream during heatwaves. This leads to overheating and overloading machines which shut down during peak hours
@@dizzy_derpsyet people continually say all service jobs should just be for teens part time and demean the adults who work those jobs 🙄
Idk, I guess the people they hire at Wendy's are extremely good workers. Idk how McDonald's has an average of 30% of their machines down at franchises vs Wendy's who has less than 1%.
@@Camelotsmoon The other interesting bit is that Wendy's machine made by Kappus which owns Taylor as one of it's brands. Something tells me the relationship is much better between Kappus and Wendy's vs Taylor and Mcd's.
This is awesome, I hope this gets some of the lay people out there to understand how these sorts of laws really affect them, like when they can't get ice cream at a McD's.
These sorts of bad laws, particularly the DMCA are abused non-stop now, usually protecting shady business practices to begin with, exactly like Taylor and John Deere using these exclusive contracts to service and repair their devices. When its obvious the product is flawed and requires external intervention due to a lack of support by the original manufacturer, there is no reason alternative repairs should not be allowed under any laws!
McDonald's makes more money in one month than you could spend in a lifetime. There's literally zero excuse for their ice cream machines being down so often.
Wendy's doesn't have this problem and Dairy Queen doesn't have this problem. Why spend money on ice cream machines when they don't won't and you can't make money off of them. They probably lose MILLIONS in revenue every day because they can't sell ice cream to customers and they aren't doing anything about it.
If it's the ice cream maker supplier that's the problem, CHANGE SUPPLIERS. If it's employee, train/fire/hire your employees.
While right to repair laws are severely lacking, it's McDonald's own fault for outsourcing and/or going with an inferior product.
Either make your own machines, or get better ones that don't have the same problems.
Context:
McDonalds is NOT a restaurateur, their primary business is land and rent from that land. Conveniently, most McDonalds are FRANCHISE locations and McDonalds the corporation doesnt care if a franchise has problems with the REQUIRED equipment. McDonalds and Taylor have had a LONG relationship because these machines working or not makes one of the two money at the EXPENSE of the people who run the franchise. This is why it is important to pass Right to Repair. This particular relationship Taylor has with Mc Donalds is racketeering and it should be stopped.
Bullcrap. Francisees in the USoA are free to buy a Carpigiani machine (that fails less and is easier to maintain) instead of a Taylor. But, to save a few bucks upfront, most francisees get the Taylor one, even those francisees close to a Carpigiani service center. So...
¿Is only McD being evil here?
¿Or is it also francisees saving pennies and losing Dollars?
@@williamyfconsidering what it costs franchisees to become one, the answer is clear.
@@williamyf Carpigiani machine is some what new
You're right, it's 100% common sense to spend money on a product that won't make you money half the time /s @@williamyf
@@williamyf Don't be daft, much less an apologist for a corporation as large/successful as McDonalds. When a franchisee goes to open a store, they get the whole list of steps to do so, one of which is of course the "recommended" equipment to purchase/use. What do you think McDonalds corporate recommends? And why would a franchisee question it? Surely McDonalds wants them to be successful... That's in everyone's best interests, right? And even if it's a question of dollars/cents, wouldn't you feel pretty silly choosing a more expensive machine that McDonalds themselves don't recommend? Come on...
I remember the design difference the Taylor made ice cream machine had for McDonalds, vs other fast food restaurants like Wendy's, was to be able to re-pasteurize the milk that was already in there. So if there was left over milk from the previous day, it will get pasteurized again so it's made safe. While the machines at restaurants like Wendy's, you'd just throw out the milk.
Another reason that McDonalds is ok with Taylor being the only company to call when something is not working with their machines, is that McDonalds is also a share holder in the company. McDonalds makes money from this business relationship being a share holder in Taylor when it comes to getting dividend payments from Taylor. This kind of monopoly shouldn't be allowed.
It is also a problem mostly located in the US. German McDonalds doesnt have problems that frequently
It's a massive problem in the UK. Given up on chocolate shakes but just go to BK now instead
I've heard that the other ice cream machines McDonalds restaurants use are made in Italy. Those ones are supposed to be more reliable, but when they break down, it takes a week to ship the parts from Europe to America. I would imagine the shipping time from Italy to Germany isn't too long.
its your job to jump over the counter and fix the ice cream machine (ignore the workers telling you they will call the police)
Same in Brazil. Never had this problem. It's a us meme
Same here in canada, in fact this issue is unheard of here lol
From the UK, where this issue isn't as bad as in the US. The McDonald's / Taylor Repair racket is a well known problem for years, glad ur taking up this fight.
This by and large isn't an issue outside of the USA and maybe Canada, because Taylor does not have the 24/7 technicians available over here. I'm in continental Europe, my sister owns 2 McD franchises, the ice cream machine in her McDs are never on the fritz and when they are they have 2 manuals with the machine. One is the Operator's Manual and most of the error codes in that book say to call the Taylor technician. The other is the Technician's Manual, which has in-depth explanations of all procedures, hidden menu features and repairs for the machine. It even includes a parts list and instructions on how to order them from the local supplier.
It's the same machine they get in the US, so the problem isn't the machine. It's the UI/UX of the machine. Taylor is purposely obfuscating and hiding things in order to get that juicy "recurring income" from the service calls. So US McD franchisees only get the owner/operator manual, but everywhere else in the world they also get the technician/maintenance manual.
You could probably find it on the internet somewhere, but the machine keeps a log of access to the hidden maintenance menu, so if you have to call in a tech later for something else, they'll know you've bypassed them earlier and thus may not want to repair without first screwing you over for some sort of additional "reset to default" thing they'll claim to have to do.
Im allso pretty sure, with in the EU (as UK ones was), it was made illigal to have a monopoly on service.
Just like automakers cant void a warrenty, even if the car was serviced on a non-maker workshop/garage.
@@ImpetuzViscus the catch there is that many consumer protection laws do not apply to companies.
Internally the machines are mostly "industrial lego" that can be serviced by any technician qualified to do that type of work.
It's just the UI part on the front that's McD specific. It's also the only part that you have to order through McD corporate, everything else can be bought through a Taylor reseller or from any vendor that sells that kind of industrial lego component.
There's nothing inherently wrong with the machines, it's not bad design or anything like that. It's just the software that locks US based McD franchisees into a service contract.
And it also has to do with the terms of the financial lease of the kitchen equipment, as the restaurant doesn't actually own it, McD has a rather large say in what is and isn't allowed with their property.
I was the technician for Showbiz Pizza Time Theatre for 6 years, we had an older (non electronic) version of these machines, ice cream (soft serve, technically ice milk) was ready to dispense about 30 minutes after turning the machine on. These machines while precision were very simple and the only time ours was "down" was when employees at night would drop the mixer drum (spun inside the freezing chamber) and they would bend it, it was a tight tolerance and if bent it was expensive to replace. In my 6 years there we never once called Taylor to come fix the machine and it was in service 99% of the time (probably closer to 99.5%). The only 2 reasons it was ever out was the reason I mentioned and when management forgot to purchase enough 'mix' for the machine.
I have watched the whole thing about the new machines for a few years now and I think that Taylor should be massively sued by McDonalds and I have no idea why such a large user like that would put up with these issues unless they get a kickback from Taylor on each repair (to franchises). Taylor could fix and prevent these issues with just a firmware update if they wanted to.
McDonalds doesn't care, execs are absolutely getting kickbacks from Taylor, which is against the law but it's not illegal if no one stops you
it's likely that mcdonalds also gets a cut from the service calls as well... or something. like mentioned in the video, taylor and mcdonalds have been working together for as long as they've basically existed (well, as long as mcdonalds has existed, taylor has been around for a few decades more) so all of this likely is done with mcdonalds executive's permission
It's worth noting that McDonald's isn't directly impacted by Taylor's practices thanks to their franchise model. They have an enormous amount of power over their franchisees, but ultimately a store that's losing sales is the small business owner's problem, not an issue for Corporate.
As noted in the video, McDonalds isn't going to sue Taylor. They're working together. Taylor sells other machines to other franchises that don't break down as often. If McDonalds wanted, they could upgrade to a more functional machine that doesn't leave their franchise owners stranded so often. The truth is that this problem is pure corruption, and the franchise owners are the ones getting hurt. The franchise owners need to sue McDonalds, but that would likely mean giving up their franchise location because of the lawsuit. McDonalds is going to retaliate against the franchise owners if they try to fight back against these practices.
The only semi-good news is that McDonalds is likely going to become the next subway. Basically, an irrelevant and dying business. They've already had a reputation for cheap and crappy food, but their reputation as openly hostile to franchise owners is becoming very well known. Their hostility towards franchise owners is becoming a lot more of a serious threat to their existence. It's causing franchise owners to simply walk away. If enough owners leave, McDonalds locations will start closing, because McDonalds can't fill those vacancies. As locations close, McDonalds might do what Subway did, and become even more hostile towards the existing owners, to try and fill the missing quarterly profits by taking more money from franchise owners, leading to a vicious death spiral. Subway was once larger than McDonalds in America, and I bet that soon McDonalds will no longer be the top dog in franchise restaurants. Right now, if you have the ~2 million dollars needed to open a McDonalds restaurant, you can make the same yearly profit simply investing in government bonds. I expect that the change in the economic environment and exposé's like these will cause a lot of franchise owners to cash out.
Others have said the same, but reiteration is important.
McDonalds does not own every store, most are franchises. As a whole, McDonalds is an image, and they let people buy permission to use their image and branding.
As part of a franchise, you have to agree to follow certain rules. Who you buy from, menu items, and layout are all determined by the company. You're renting their name and formula, nothing more.
So let me put it like this: if you were able to write a contract that forces another person who you have by the balls to only use the ludicrously expensive icecream machines, and that icecream company happened to pay you for their contract, why wouldn't you? You and the icecream company are fine, neither of you has any risk. The risk is all on the franchise partner.
This is a brilliant way of answering a genuine question that all sorts of people have had whilst spreading awareness about right to repair!
It is criminal that only 1 million subs are here, you people are the absolute greatest! We love you!
I think this type of video needs to go viral to show ppl how right to repair is essential for everyday professionals and not only nerds who tinker their electronic devices.
It highlights how anti repair designs are just a money grab by usually already wealthy corporations.
"I want an ice cream. Let me just hop over the counter, battle the McDonald's employees, dodge two Apple pies, fix the machine, and grab an Oreo McFlurry before the drive-through worker starts beating me with a cashier."
Or you know, just go to a Culvers, Dairy Queen, Carvelle, Baskin Robins, Local Ice Cream place with some variation on "Milk King" or "Dairy Whip" or "Legally not Dairy Queen" or whatever other slack ass name they came up with.
5 Guys, Wendy's, Local Dairy Co-op place, local Hippster Ice Cream shop, Local yuppie Ice Cream "Parlour" or Ice Cream "Shoppe", Denny's, Friendlies, Handel's, The actual good local place that everyone has known for like 60 years that always is busy, the SUPERMARKET.
I worked during McD's during college years i actually managed the store and had to order parts/repairs. Our machine was often not broken but out of use. This was because at the end of the night (about 2hs before closing) we would put the machine into a cleaning cycle. In the morning when we fired the machine up it took a while to get down to temp. (around 4hs, we opened at 6am it was ready around 10:30am after we checked it was all good and got around to stocking it) This is the bulk of the time the machine is not working anyway, most people assume or get told its "not working". There are times where the machine does go bad but these in my experience were not that common. Usually we would have to lodge a job on the system for repair and someone came out within 24hs, maybe it would be fixed, maybe a part was ordered and it was up and running in a week. This repair time though was standard for all stuff really. Other stores who use these machines and are 24/h often don't have the issues because they run the cleaning cycle/start during early hours of the night (so less people complain or notice), or after they close and before they open.
This felt so random when I saw it but so cool that you guys are calling this genuine problem out and doing something about it!
The heroes we didn’t expect but needed. Maybe soon we’ll all get to enjoy some McDonald’s ice cream and give a cheers with ice cream cones
I live in Europe for whole my life, almost 40 year. I never heard about problem with broken icecream machines in McDonald's here.
They have been broken i Sweden pretty often for as long as I can remember.
Sweden they break down all the time. Or they just lie
American blacks don't take care of the machines and break them. This has never been a problem in my 99% white hometown.
Same thing here in Australia. But I'm a bit younger at 29.
Taylor makes a lot of different ice cream machines for other fast food places. The issue is that none of those places are forced to use any one machine form one manufacturer, but Mcds forces their restaurants to use this one specific machine and they can't use anything else removing competition and incentivizing Taylor to make a machine that barely works so they can squeeze more profit from service calls. If Mcds would allow their restaurants to use that's say 1 of 3 machines from different companies it wouldn't be an issue and my guess that's what's going on in Europe. There is a good documentary by
Johnny Harris on why the Mcds ice cream machines in the US if you want more info or sources
This is why I love iFixIt. These large corporations screwing every part of society needs to be stopped.
This was the best video about ice cream ice ever seen. Seriously love the work and advocacy you guys do. It's inspiring and honestly great publicity! I hope the changes you are asking if Congress go through, especially for making a repair exception
I worked at McDonald's in the 80's, and the soft serve machine failure for the most part, was always due to overheating, due to massive quantities being served during peak summer hours. We did cones and sundaes, but the heat exchanger could only take so much, and changing a liquid to a semi-solid takes quite a bit of cooling to do. Everyday, we were taught to disassemble the parts that touch the soft serve, mixer, agitator, auger assembly, and run sanitzer solution through them to prevent bacteria. So, for the most part, they aren't really broken, they are just taxed to the extent where heat buildup is too much, and it literally needs to cool down.
This sent chills down my spine. I wish you the best of luck on your mission to mend dmca laws. I will continue to support your company as well.
You got chills just looking at ice cream?
how are you verified with 51 subscribers@@aokaze-minotaur
@@crafterrium8724 I’m not verified. I just have a musician account.
@@aokaze-minotaur Gotta eat it slower.
Another thing worth mentioning, many McDonald's executives own shares in Taylor, so the profits they make from service go directly into their pockets, disincentivizing cheaper repair.
This is uniquely a US problem, as I've never heard anyone talking about or seen a "broken" icecream machine here in Europe.
It actually really confused me when I heard about it, as it was never a problem in my frame of reference.
Not just US. It's 100% a UK problem too.
Kidding me!? In Sweden the ice cream machines are ALWAYS down at McDonald's. I've never encountered a problem with their competitors. I've easily been denied ice cream or milk shakes 50+ times at McDonald's.
dude it's definitely a problem in italy and austria
In Germany this is prevalent.
definitely not a US problem. maybe your country is so small you only have one McDonald there and somehow that one always has its icecream machine funtional.
Incredibly insightful video. Thank you for your efforts. 💚
I think this is a uniquely the US issue. I don't remember ever seeing McDonald's ice cream machine down here in Pakistan.
They probably simply got 2 of them, so one can be cleaned every 12 hours.
It could be they use a manual ice cream machine in other countries.
American blacks don't take care of the machines and break them. This has never been a problem in my 99% white hometown.
@@JohnM-cd4ou And it's not the white store owners fault for not being a competent business person because?
@@JohnM-cd4outry not to be blatantly racist speedrun any% wr
just awesome!
employee: ey boss can we get an ice cream machine for work?
boss: only if you can make it reflect our business vision
employee: hold my iFixit screwdriver!
Wow, the copyright office approved this exemption today. Interesting to see what happens now.
Meanwhile in Europe, the ice cream machines are almost never broken.
meanwhile...anyone who goes to McD's for ice cream has no taste or brains.
well they are here in italy wdym bro
Same in Australia. Never in my 29 years of being alive have I had that issue. I have had the issue of them literally running out of ice cream though (was a very hot summers afternoon over a decade ago).
American blacks don't take care of the machines and break them. This has never been a problem in my 99% white hometown.
I lived in Japan for three years as well and went to McDonald's once a week. Was never a problem there either
@@do0nv explain the correlation then if it's not the people manning the ice cream machines, moron
interesting to be able to see the fabled machine up close. it's worth noting that Johnny Harris did a thorough and in-depth piece of reporting on this a few years ago which is essential viewing.
Flatt Head screws = automatic 4-point reduction in the repairability score 😂
Amazing how slotted screws get bullied into being only associated with one head type!
You guys are such an amazing company, keep up the amazing work. FULLY support you guys doing this... needs to happen..
I've never gone to Maccas in Australia and had their soft serve being down
American blacks don't take care of the machines and break them. This has never been a problem in my 99% white hometown.
I lived in Japan for three years as well and went to McDonald's once a week. Was never a problem there either
I'm sure there are other factors, like different laws, in these countries that affect how they can repair the machines that don't exist in America. Also I'm sure your 99% white hometown isn't as populated therefore the ice cream machines aren't constantly in use and don't break as fast.
@@DOFT.mp4 considering it's one of the only fast food places in town, it's absolutely packed every single day. Cope harder.
@@JohnM-cd4ou Considering it's the only fast food place in town, there's probably not a lot of people around since no other big franchise has decided it was profitable to build there. I'm sure "absolutely packed" means something different
@@DOFT.mp4 dude, lmao. Do you have any more copes? Go ahead. Just throw em all out there.
I worked for half a year in a different burger fast food chain restaurant. We had this exact ice cream machine, and surprisingly we never had any problems with it. It was surprisingly the most reliable machine we had there.
I'm not saying that McDonalds has a different model with a slightly different code, that makes it break down more, just a fun anecdote.
The fact that these machines overheat seems like a design flaw - on the part of both Taylor (for not providing adequate cooling, a user-friendly interface and/or not communicating the cooling requirements to McD corporate designers) AND McD corporate in their kitchen design for not understanding how to locate these machines to provide adequate cooling and for not demanding that the machines be easier to use and repair. If I were a franchisee having to pay the service bills, I'd consider sending the machine back and take ice cream off my menu.
I'm pretty sure there'd be a contract stopping you from doing exactly that and forcing you to use Taylor machines exclusively.
Yes, the machines do seem badly engineered and I don't think that's a coincidence.
FULLY support you guys doing this... needs to happen.
4:30 don't forget Taylor performed corporate espionage; they got a Kitch unit through a McDonalds exec, cloned it, and sold their own (after Kitch blocked all Taylor's other attempts to buy one directy or indirectly for years).
@googleuser2413 lol oops edited
@googleuser2413 I had a link to an article but it got deleted and I had to repost without it.
Aside from the DMCA, Taylor has a deal with McDonald's that prohibits franchise owners from fixing their machines. Kytch devices on a McDonald's machine will get their franchise pulled. Meanwhile, Taylor got hold of a Kytch device and shortly afterward came out with their own version ... which might help some, but it'll probably also be lucrative for Taylor.
I just recently bought a repair kit from you guys. I am so happy I did that. What an excellent company. Keep doing what you're doing
You guys are such an amazing company, keep up the amazing work
I spent almost 5 years of my life working in several different restaurants from them (netherlands), and I've never seen or had a broken machine. Heat cycle has nothing to do with being broken, and I think last time someone made a video on this it just sounded like people don't do maintenance/cleaning properly. I've seen the overheating issue, but that was once a year on the busiest day in the middle of summer
Johnny Harris made a video about this about 2 years back that is basically my Bible for the McDonald’s ice cream machine issue. I’ve shared that video dozens of times when this conversation comes up on social media (I’m THAT “right to repair nut” in my immediate circle of influence 😅)
Vendors do this by design. This is extremely prevalent in medical industry where vendors lock devices and applications down, force a support contract so all you can do i call them for support, even though you purchased the software and have the staff on hand to support it, you still have to purchase support contract from the vendor to get repairs done. Usually they hide behind "FDA regulations" to force this.
Shout out to anyone asking for an icecream at 3 or 4 am lol! 😎😎
Glad that this is not a thing where im from xD I've never had the ice cream machine break or even heard of it here
I actually bought one of these from an auction at a local mc donald's which closed down. I've been using it every summer for three years now and it still works. Sometimes it will give me an error message or two but usually it just continues it's cycle. Cleaning is a pain though and I can see how that may cause additional downtime.
In Canada taylor Dosent come out, we have a a 3rd part contractor. And other than the cleaning cycle these machines are rarely down
Making the world a better place one repair guide at a time
This is the content we want. I bet this will become one of your most viewed video.
I thought this was an April fools video, but this was actually an amazing video showing why right to repair is so important! Keep up the great fight! You guys are doing awesome
Was a Wendy's manager for a number of years. I can't ever recall a time the Frosty machine was broken. We kept it filled and that was it.
One thing that wasn't covered here is how the machines will often go into a lockout state that requires an "authorized service technician" to repair them.
I worked at Burger King 20 years ago, and while our machines were usually quite resilient, they would still sometimes fail. The most common reason they would fail is that someone would overfill the hopper, which prevented the heat exchanger from keeping the mix at the correct temperature. However, when this happened, the machine would give an opaque error code and would lock out the machine, requiring a technician to repair it. Getting in a technician would sometimes takes weeks.
It's easy to see how this could be unintentional. After all, it is important that the machine keeps the product cool, and if it can't, that's a sign that something is wrong. Failing to keep it cool makes the product potentially unsafe to serve. So the safe thing to do is to lock it out, right?
But the issue is how it all comes together. The machine doesn't realize the hopper is overfull or that the machine is overworked - it just says "I'm failing to keep it cold" and shuts down as if it were broken. The user is not made aware of this or given an opportunity to rectify it - they can't even power cycle it do a full cleaning cycle to try again.
The technicians sometimes informed people of the cause and the management sometimes passed along the message, but when the people working at 3AM are kids who come and go every few months, that kind of knowledge is lost. If someone isn't aware and gets the machine into this state, it takes the whole thing offline for at least days if not weeks.
And this is where the issue lies. There are many ways Taylor could fix this. The machine could have more sensors and be more intelligent so that it can tell the difference between being overworked and having an outright failure. The manual and error codes could be clearer so that it were easier to teach new people how to use it correctly and how to avoid the issue. The software could be written specifically to handle this use case, providing a way for operators to go through a full cleaning cycle and get back to a safe and working state instead of going into a full lock-out that requires a technician.
But at the end of the day, Taylor hasn't done anything like this in the past 20 years. The still issues still exist with all machines. The same common and avoidable failure modes and overbearing lockouts leave operators with no choice but to pay a ransom to Taylor to service their machine. It's clear that Taylor has no interest in making this any easier. Not only do they not fix the underlying issue, but they also do everything in their power to keep others from fixing it for them. Their insistence on "authorized service technicians", the closely guarded secret that is the service manual they provide to these technicians, and the efforts they have made to sue and shutdown anyone who would shed light on how to fix and maintain these machines for themselves.
This is exactly what right to repair is all about. When you buy a machine, it's yours, and a company shouldn't be able to hold you to ransom for daily maintenance and operations. Taylor goes out of their way to not only withhold the necessary information from you, but they also use the law as a weapon against anyone who would try to help.
The fact that an entire website, dedicated for listening all working and broken ice-cream machines, called mcbroken exists made my day
I learned about the technician contract about a year ago and I was not happy about it whatsoever, glad there’s work being put into right to repair
In the past I've cleaned the Taylor c602(? I think it's called) for 5 years. Sharing my experience:
@6:50 there's no "overheating resulting in mush." If running lots of product in a short period of time and the vanilla shake mix in the top hopper has no time to freeze/solidify in the bottom barrel, it comes out liquidy. The machine never broke down, it just had melty ice cream.
If it did truly overheat and refuse to operate, I'd suspect not properly cleaned or broken/worn parts that should be replaced. Gaskets, o-rings, scrapper blades (there's a 3mo and 6mo schedule)
The part after that is true tho, McDonald's employees have much limited access and allowability to fully take apart and repair the machine apart from the daily/weekly cleaning process
it's called putting computers on a machine that doesn't need computers. they are designed to fail and be non repairable unless you spend the money to get a tech out to fix it. I am an HVAC tech and I see it in everything heating and air-conditioning, they put tons of sensors and computers in machines that really don't need it and it turns an easy repair and a $20 part into a very difficult repair and a $500 part that is IF you can find it. they want stuff to fail just past the warranty so you have to buy another one and they make the parts so expensive it's almost cheaper to buy a new one
diagnostics are pretty invaluable for machines like this, it just happens that this specific model is intentionally obscure compared the ones taylor sells other resteraunts
@@gruntlord6 the only reason you need diagnostics is because it's packed with computers and sensors it doesn't really need. it's made overly complicated on purpose. all you need to make a simple ice cream machine is a compressor, evaporator and condenser, old school mechanical thermostat, a motor to run the agitator and another to run the screw that mixes and pushes the ice cream out. when it breaks you could troubleshoot it with a $5 volt/ohm meter and a basic knowledge of electricity
@@TheSimba86 it needs a lot of those for sanitary reasons, no one wants to get food poisoning from rancid cream being in the milk.
@@gruntlord6 Nope. The old style Tayor's are perfectly safe, if there's a cooling issue the machine just doesn't make Icecream before it's a problem. They are also highly reliable. McDonald's switched to these (they asked Taylor to make them) for the computer diagnostics to save on diagnostic time, and labor hours needed for cleaning.
Kitch VS taylor was also a thing where tayolor made a EXACTLY similar device, but you had to pay 2000 to get it installed and a 150$ a year fee
I’m so sad that ifixit took their own life this evening and jumped out a window, totally not pushed, such a tragic loss
The only reason McDonald's would not get a more reliable machine is if profits extracted from franchises exceeds those of potential ice cream sales.
Another incentive for McDonalds to have Taylor techs do the repairs, is because one of the biggest shareholders of both companies is the same investment firm, so having Taylor getting all that money from the repairs helps their bottom line.
Huge iFixit fan!! Awesome piece demystifying the importance of the DMCA for an ordinary commercially available piece of equipment at Micky Dees!!
wish you the best on the exception and process to get industrial equipment, but also thank you for everything you guys do to help R2R.
Thank you for fighting back against these greedy business practices! It’s a disgusting way to make money and it’s about time it stops and people are free to do what they want with their property no matter who made it.
Tell that to Ferrari. They sue people all the time for doing anything to one of “their” cars
What I don't get is that none of my local ice cream places ever have the problems the Taylor machines have at McDonalds
They probably avoid Taylor machines like the plague.
I know i would
It's probably a case of their business requiring their machines to work. For some reason, McDonalds doesn't care whether their machines are up reliably, or how much it costs to fix them. For a shop that makes ice cream it's sole business, the machines MUST be up all the time and not cost thousands to repair regularly. That means either they have backups available, their employees are trained to troubleshoot them, or they simply pay more upfront for machines that are extremely durable and reliable.
That's because your local Ice Cream Places still have self respect. You sign that away in the initial franchise agreement with the clown.
You also should remember that most McDonalds restaurants operate 24/7, meaning that often the machine is in almost constant operation up until its heat-treat cycle. It requires a full brush clean every 7days, if it is not put together, lubed and cleaned correctly something will break or it will not dispense correctly. Likely most local ice-cream places clean their machines daily and have the time before starting their workday to get it in working condition.
@@MaxUnix And McDonalds should remember to schedule actual down time because I’ll bet there’s very little call for ice cream at 4am. And I also bet there’s not a ton for an overnighter to do in all the time between orders.
With their digital screen menus, changing what’s available is now trivial.
You did miss one bombshell that was went over in a documentary, RUclips video about broken ice cream machines from a couple years ago. Taylor, along with McDonald’s corporation colluded and paid a couple of franchisees to go out and buy a kitch device for two of their machines and turned around and took the kitch devices breaching the license and contract with the kitch company. Before that they attempted to buy kitch devices themselves, but Kitch, was on to them and knew who they were. They did not catch on to Taylor taking the kitch devices off these machines until they noticed their device is going off-line and not reporting back. I believe it went as far as the devices started reporting back from Taylor‘s headquarters but I can’t remember. Taylor proceeded to reverse engineer that device, and then I think they turned around and sued kitch to prevent them from allowing their devices on their machines. After they took care of Kitch, they turned around and put out press release of an approved device that they were in the process of developing basically similar to kitch
I do never buy ice cream (or any other food) at McDonalds. But I did enjoy the video. Please make more about industrial equipment.
Thank you for supporting right to repair in a world where companies dont want you to own anything or get stuff repaired.
in russia i haven't nad any problems with getting ice cream in mcdonalds, but pretty often in burger king there were no ice or ice cream
I think that since spring 2022 anyone would have serious problems getting McD's or Burger King's Ice Cream in Russia. I think you can get Вкусно - и точка, but not McD's. 😛 ;-)
@@williamyf there is practically no difference between Vkusno I Tochka and McDonald's. Same restaraunts same menu slightly changed recipies like bigmac or bigtasty, but almost the same taste, kfc turned back to rostics like it used to be before they bought KFC franchise but also same taste and dishes as kfc. Burger King hasn't changed.
I am so excited for this!!!❤ Thank you! Finally we get to fix/modify the thing we OWN! Good luck and I can’t wait 😁
okay this seems a problem in US only.
I have travelled most of Europe and never faced this issue, also in India and Japan, I have never faced it.
I mostly go to McDs only for the IceCreams 😁
American blacks don't take care of the machines and break them. This has never been a problem in my 99% white hometown.
I lived in Japan for three years as well and went to McDonald's once a week. Was never a problem there either.
\I've watched a video on this before, someone did make a kit to be able to fix it, the issue is that McDonald's owns most of Taylor... so they get a kick back from franchisees having to use the repair service. I applaud you for taking your time to do this, but no one who owns a McDonalds franchise will risk it.
Here in Scotland its a big issue. They are frequently broken and can be for weeks at a time. The branches don't seem to give a Monkeys and just give out excuses. I was aware of this issue, I can't believe it's still going on, McDonalds are taking us for mugs!
.@ you should have typed 'Here in Scotland it's a big MAC issue..Go to burger king you muppet.
Y’all are amazing for doing this kind of work!
If you get a DMCA exemption for McD ice cream machines, it wouldn't surprise me if your team received free ice cream for life from McD franchisees. Well played!
It wouldn't surprise me if they received a free lawsuit
@@thecianinator Yup. This wouldn't be an ongoing issue if nobody made a profit from it and they won't be giving that profit up without a fight.
All I know is, the ice cream machines at literally every other fast food franchise do not have this problem.
Yes. My randomly bought mcdonalds ice cream machine located in my basement needs this video. I just need to find the ice cream recipe on the dark web and I could be the ice cream king of my neighbourhood 🤴🏻
It's deliberate, for sure. Years ago (early-mid 80s) I worked for a company making electronic security systems, and they had a very primitive wireless alarm system in which each remote sensor was powered by a 9v MN1603 battery. Owners had to sign up to a service contract which among other things would replace these batteries every 18 months which was about their useful lifetime, given the poor design of the electronics. (And due to the need for numerous sensors, one per 'protected' door or window, the batteries were basically always needing replacement, all the time). As an engineer I was tasked with designing a replacement for this system which needed much more capability and to be actually secure to some extent. By that time technology had moved on and it would have been possible to effectively build-in a soldered battery with a lifetime of around 7 years, and then the whole sensor, which was far smaller as a result, could be replaced. We proceeded with the design to a point when the marketers and the other elements of the company started to work on it. The battery idea was nixed on the basis that it would kill the lucrative service contracts, even though it offered a far, far better customer experience from the constant 'low battery, call service' warnings. So the 9v batteries came back and basically ruined the project. That's corporate culture for you.
No way there are THAT many flathead screws in a piece of equipment made after 1950. That’s insane. Other than the ones that were also hex nuts, it’s another FU to everybody working on the machine.
iFixit are the heros we need
I worked at Chickfila as a manager and our machines were rarely down if cleaned properly every night. I don't know what brand it was but it was very similar to this Taylor version. It didn't take long in comparison to start up, as there was no 4 hour heat cycle. Cleaning and setting up daily took like 30 minutes at most, while taking food orders. Crazy to think about how I got paid $11.50/hr as a manager and never had the machine broken and Taylor charges $300/hr or more because they have a Mcdonalds monopoly.
I worked at McDonald's for four years back in the late 90's. Our soft serve machine NEVER broke down.
Here's the catch: It was an older machine and we had to breakdown the machine and clean it every other night. But that's the thing, routine maintenance had to be done regularly.
Business scam at its finest. 😅
I worked at DQ for 6 years. We had Stoltein and Duke machines. Major differences: no heat cycle (ice cream mix was stored in a separate refrigerator and was already pasteurized) so it was only 5-10 minutes from startup until ready, basically no electronics, and water cooled so they never ever overheated. They were also easy and relatively intuitive to disassemble and clean/repair. Our main machine broke only once while I worked there because the compressor burned up, but it was more than 20 years old at the time. No other downtime while we were open.
The really bad part is Taylor does make great machines that don't have these problems (Wendies Frosty machines are Taylor and they work fantastic) but McDonalds has this toxic loop where the owners of McDonalds also partly own taylor, so McDonalds MANDATES this specific broken machine be used and then has this horrid contract repair system to essentially scam their franchisees.
If I was McDonald's I would pull out of the contract or change the supplier. It's embarrassing.
the corperate mcdonalds gets a kickback for the contract, the franchise is who gets hosed
Franchise chains are highly motivated to hamstring the individual franchise owners.
Franchise owners suffer too much, they can't run a successful branch and the location fails, which is bad for corporate.
However, if they start getting too successful, they get less dependent on the brand and there is a raised risk of either getting more independent within their own store or even outright disenfranchising to create an independent competitor.
Stuff like this that locks them into contractual dependency on the brand is exactly what McDonald's wants and is probably done on purpose.
They own the supplier, part of the same holding corporation. Just another way to get a extra load of franchise fee, without calling it a franchise fee, from the franchisors. More profit.
Very likely you will find the machines that go to fully owned stores are a slightly different firmware level, so that they will have some more understandable errors, or will simply limit the amount of product you can pull through when it is getting hot. Plus the fully owned stores likely have 3 or more of them, as they can then run one through the cleaning cycle per 8 hour shift, and have all 3 for peak hours. Corporate will easily absorb the extra machine cost, as they will not have no ice cream or shakes at all, making this location more popular.
Ice cream is a lower margin product so they don't care about it not selling. People will just buy burgers instead
@@battmarn Same mix is used in the ice cream and the Mcflurry, and the shakes. Just a different machine, so the margins are a lot bigger, as you are selling a blend of ice and air.
Absolute madlads. Love you guys. I'll be buying your tools until I'm dead if you keep this stuff up.
I had a McDonald’s employee by my parents’ house tell me that they only run it during certain hours of the day, like usually it’s either noon to 7pm 3pm-9pm, or noon to 9pm during the summer. They just know when they get the largest chunk of people asking for ice cream
They do the same thing with their shakes, if I go there after 10pm it’s almost a guarantee they have turned the shake machine off for the night
Makes sense, they know the heat is an issue so they use off hours to prevent it from being an issue
I really liked the title of the video and just rushed quickly to the video's upload date to see if it wasn't April Fools. Everyone's glad iFixit is taking this matter seriously.
This is the tpe of Video that is not only repairing it also tells a storyy about it .. i like that people more and more understand why a right to repair its so important.
Trying to fix a McDonald's ice cream machine is like attempting a rocket launch with a bicycle pump. Frustrating, baffling, and you're probably going to end up with a sticky mess
There is a very extensive video on these machines that is over an hour long that details just how predatory these machines are. It really is kind of insane to me that with technology going in the direction that it is that we are not seeing a new portion of the government opening which only focuses on research of these things, the products that are being made, and the practices that are occurring. There is no reason companies and the people should be having to fight this fight. I heavily appreciate what you are doing. At this point I see your company as more of an investment towards stopping these practices rather than just a tool. I may not just know about it but it would be great to see ways to donate to your legal work.
Love that this is getting exposure. If people are wanting to know more, I recommend Johnny Harris' video on the matter.
All the more infuriating learning that Taylor charges $300+ per 15 minutes for service. That’s absolutely unreal
I used to work in a UK Mc Donalds and our machine was not a Taylor. It had very few issues and worked pretty much all of the time. It was one of the combo machines that did both ice cream and milkshakes. The franchisee that owned the restaurant was forced to buy a different machine (still not a taylor) by Mc Donalds whilst I was there and the new one was a total pice of junk, breaking all the time, random error codes, etc.
Amazing to see this is happening. Best of luck. 💗