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are these good machines?


tasty

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Hi, every one! me again, tasty!

One route for sale, 12 Dixie Narco 501E drink machines. 11 Crane National snack machines. and 4 Crane National combo machines. not talking price here. but quality of the machines. any comment welcomed! 

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The 501E is known to be a very good machine. Assuming you aren't a Ford hater, the 501E is like the F-150 of soda machines.  It is durable, parts are easy to get, repairs are pretty straight-forward, and almost every vendor knows how to work on them to some degree.

 

Crane-National is a brand... so we can't say much without the model numbers.  

 

If they are National 145/146, they are getting so old that parts are getting scarce but they CAN be upgraded and they are very durable machines.  

 

National 147/148's are good machines but they have known drawbacks such as the way the trays tend to not make a good connection with the tray harness after a while.  This can be temporarily or semi-permanently fixed but these machines are also getting old.  

 

Anything newer than this is usually pretty good but I have heard about some problems with the 157 series.  I'm not very familiar with those problems but I loved their GPL sister machines when I used to service them.

 

Crane-National Combos can also be anything.  The answer still holds true and if I am correct, the National 474 is essentially a 145/146 with a can tray and the National 484 is a 147/148 with a can tray as well.

 

Overall, hearing that the route has 501E's and some sort of Crane-National machines is a good thing.  Can't say much about the value without model numbers, condition, and validator information.

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Yes, this sounds like some very good equipment based on the fact that the only soda machines are late model DN e models. They most likely also have late model snacks as well. It definitely looks like a route ypu should look into.

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  • 2 weeks later...

If they are Crane Nationals, then they have to be late 157's or higher. The early 157's were just National, not Crane. The biggest flaw with these machines, that I have found, is the shelf wiring harnesses. I really like the Nationals as they are fairly easily to diagnose when they do breakdown but that has been rare and I have some 145's in the same location for 15 years and never replaced anything but a light bulb, validator, & mech (Even have one or two with a MAKA validator still in it). I wouldn't dare compare them to a Found On Road Dead!        ;D 

 

Dixie 501 is also another workhorse. Solid well built machines!


 

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If they are Crane Nationals, then they have to be late 157's or higher. The early 157's were just National, not Crane. The biggest flaw with these machines, that I have found, is the shelf wiring harnesses. I really like the Nationals as they are fairly easily to diagnose when they do breakdown but that has been rare and I have some 145's in the same location for 15 years and never replaced anything but a light bulb, validator, & mech (Even have one or two with a MAKA validator still in it). I wouldn't dare compare them to a Found On Road Dead! ;D

Dixie 501 is also another workhorse. Solid well built machines!

I totally agree with you about the 145's. I think they are some of the most reliable machines ever built but you can't even give them away to the distributors. They barely even want 147's. They wont touch ap 4000/5000's either.

Maybe that's why they don't make a lot of parts for the 145's - they don't break!

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