polyvend snack machines

[snack dude]

I tripped over someone with a couple polyvend snack machines for sale. They are nice looking and have been in office environments but I am wondering since I think I have only seen one or two and have never had one

Are they still making these and can I get parts and are they worth a crap

Any opinions good and bad are appreciated

[AngryChris]

Some of the parts are really hard to find... so hard in fact, you sometimes need 2 of the same model so that you can use the good parts off of one to fix the other!

In all honesty... the first two machines I bought were a USI 3015A and a Polyvend 6632. I haven't placed the 3015A yet (because it's really just too big) and the PV 6632 has been making money for 18+ months now. The only problem that I have had the PV was that the "harness" or whatever the thing is actually called (terminology issue here) doesn't seem to be working 100% and sometimes causes the validator to stop registering because the coin-mech isn't plugged in properly. Maybe I am crazy but that seems to be the cause and jiggling it seems to be the fix. I haven't found anyone with the part yet but I have just resorted to refunding a dollar every month or so.

Considering I paid about $250 for it, it has MORE than paid for itself. I talked to another vendor and he said he never had a problem with his polyvends either but the fact is that the company was bought out by the GPL merger (Glasco, Polyvend, Lektrovend) and then GPL was bought by Crane and parts are just hard to get. If they are dirt cheap and you have a small account that can use them, it may not be a bad deal (assuming they work 100%) but you are generally better off sticking to something like an older national 145 or AP 4/5/6/7000 which you can get regularly for about $500 in working condition...

Actually, I never was a fan of the AP 4/5/6/7000 series due to being so "old" but I think there are more parts and upgrades for those APs than there are for new equipment!