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U Turn Disappointment


gumball guy

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I bought a used U Turn (Terminator)candy route last week and I am stunned at how difficult it is to service these machines. I just can't believe that you have to tear the whole darn machine down to get the money out and most of it is all over the bottom of the machines at that. I had read that they were a pain to service but I figured "how bad can they be?". Bad is finding a place to set 14 machine pieces (not counting the 8 coin boxes)while you're pulling the money from the bottom of the machine. I guess I would have expected a better design for a machine that retails for so much. My advice to anyone looking at these machines..... do your own u turn and buy a Northwestern. Live and learn.

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I am sorry to hear about this, yet on the other hand, I am glad you posted. I was going to be looking at some of these Terminators this coming Saturday to put in 3 of my locations that I have 2 triple heads in each one. and are on track to average $11/head a month.

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Its pretty unbelievable huh? U Turn puts on some show when you call them and show interest in their product. They invite you out to their etc. What a crock.

I see this machine fail the most in the field. There one day gone the next; abandoned; not serviced on and on. I would never own one.

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I hear that the Uturn people really push that 8-select on new prospects pretty hard even over their own 4-select. They convince people that more selection is better and charge an additional $200 per machine for it! For some reason, we all initially like to think of a bulk machine as a miniature snack machine. We see a snack machine with 20 selections and naturally think that 8 selections of candy would do just fine and would actually be kinda cool. That misconception can easily be taken advantage of - and of course it is! That guy in Indy has lowered his price on eBay from $500 to $300 for his 8-selects - and he still has more pain to bear as that price is still way to high. There was a guy here in central Florida that bought 700 of those 8-select monsters a number of years back - all yellow too - yuk! Good commission for that rep.

Some of you know that I started out as a Uturn vendor 10 years ago. Back then they did not push the 8-selects. And yes, I did have about 6 of those 8-selects. There were a pain to service and the canisters are usually too small. Even if you mix toys and candy in them, you end up putting the hot selling products in 2 or 3 canisters and your 8-select really turns into a 4 or 5 select any way. So just put in 4 NW heads on a small rack stand and be done with it! Five years ago I had about 120 4-select uturns (mostly purchased used on eBay), but I began transitioning the route to NW 3 years ago and have sold 100 uturns over the last 2 years. Have about 20 Uturns left and should have them all sold off by year end (since I don't have my own hotel chain to place them at!). In the mean time, I just keep rolling the Uturn proceeds into more NW heads and locations - have not paid for any new NW equipment or locations out of my own pocket for the past 18 months. I guess I can also buy some more 2-for-1 gumball wheels as well!

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I really got a great deal on this route (less than $65 per location plus the money in the machines) primarily because the woman that owned it didn't realize how much work was involved (thank you UTURN) and she wanted out. Many of these machines on location were empty and dirty but luckily, after alot of butt kissing, I was able to keep all 17 on board. She bought the machines used so she didn't take as bad a beating as someone who bought directly from Uturn but she still took a hefty loss. I am in the process of switching several of these locations over to NW Triple Plays and hope to sell the out of service Uturns this summer. The great thing is that more than half of these locations are really solid locations and they are all in a tight geographic radius (less than 15 miles).

I have been talking to another gentleman about buying his Uturn route for the last year. He has 50 locations that he bought and set up through Uturn and wanted 25k. He actually wanted 35K last year for it. Had to break it to him that he will likely never get the $$$ out of this deal that he wants(unless he finds a sucker with $$). Told him if he wanted to part out the route I would try to work with him but after dealing with these machines I would never buy a Uturn route of that size. It would be cheaper and easier to use a locator/or place myself and put in used triple head machines.

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It seems like the only routes for sale lately are the ones with biz-op equipment. If you can get it cheap enough (and it sounds like you did), you can get some good potential spots, maybe even some rack upgrades. But there is a price to pay! As stated, you may have to smooze the location just to keep the spot due to bad service (or really no service) from the other vendor. However, it is a royal pain to clean up all that biz-op equipment and sell it and then replace it with your own stuff. The last time I did that, I had 40 biz-op machines to get rid of. And you usually have to sell them off just one or two at a time since most people who want to break into vending usually have little or no money. It's almost impossible to sell off a garage full of biz-op machines to one person unless you are giving it away. It was a royal pain and I don't want to do that again unless the cost is dirt cheap or the potential of the locations are very very good.

There was a guy here who had 90 Uturn locations (half were 8-select) for sale about a year ago - and at a reasonable price. I never pursued it since I knew the incredible amount of work and time it would take to clean up and sell off those Uturns one at a time on eBay. I too would rather build new locations from scratch rather than buy a large biz-op route with equipment that I don't want. Plus the price is usually grossly inflated anyhow. I see 30 location Vendstar routes asking $15,000 to $20,000! Please! Or should I say pa-lease or maybe (to copy ESPN), C'Mon Man!

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Even if they are overpriced, you can still discuss it with them, and make an offer. Just because the want too much doesn't mean they won't take much less. Most overprice anyway just so they can negotiate down to what they actually want. In fact if you come in letting them know you think it is too high, they may come down before negotiating even starts. It also lets you know ahead of time if they are willing to budge at all, and if it is even worth it to start the negotiations. If they budge once, most likely they will budge again.

Also have patience. I have seen multiple routes, some I couldn't jump on for one reason or another, some that I decided to pass on, and some that wouldn't budge on price. But I know that more will show up. But I have also ran into a few machines at decent prices.

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Vend3 is running ads everywhere here to push their machines. "Do you make $800 a day?" lol. Only $8995 to get started. How do people fall for this stuff? It makes me sick to see this kind of BS. Uturn is just as bad. We bought a lot of 50 nearly new Terminators from a guy in Orlando to resell, and wound up selling most of them to people out in California. guy was initially asking $5k, and wound up selling them to us for $1700. I was still able to make a killing and not charge an arm and a leg for them when I sold them. Give me a double head route any day.

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u turns are not the best machines around and do take a little longer to service but some locations can only fit that size machine.they have taller coin boxes now and you can cut a styrofoam square to put down the center rod of the machine to keep the coin boxes in place.

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  • 1 month later...

personally we have no problems with the uturns, we also find that in the right location the 8 select machines are a great money spinner and all of our 8 selects has a monthly turnover excedding $100 per monthly service, some a lot more.

a combination of toys and candy where theres a lot of kids around it works well. one of the major advantages for them in our market is that most businesses are always concerned about the amount of floor space the machines occupy, and they are compact. we recently installed $2 coin mechanisms on some of the selections on our terminators and this has increased our turnover per machine hugely.

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personally we have no problems with the uturns, we also find that in the right location the 8 select machines are a great money spinner and all of our 8 selects has a monthly turnover excedding $100 per monthly service, some a lot more.

a combination of toys and candy where theres a lot of kids around it works well. one of the major advantages for them in our market is that most businesses are always concerned about the amount of floor space the machines occupy, and they are compact. we recently installed $2 coin mechanisms on some of the selections on our terminators and this has increased our turnover per machine hugely.

Holy crap! $2 vends? What are you vending for that kind of money out of a Uturn? The Austrailian dollar is about a penny and a half more than a US dollar currently.

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I agree that U-Turns can be effective in certain venues and the small footprint is a real bonus. My main gripe is that they are just poorly designed for easy servicing especially in tight spots where there is not alot of room to dismantle the machine. I hate putting the canisters on a dirty floor because it just doesn't look hygienic(especially to customers)but in some locations I just have no choice but to use the floor. The poor design also makes money collection much more time consuming. I can empty any of my 3 select machines in a fraction of the time.

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  • 2 months later...

I agree that U-Turns can be effective in certain venues and the small footprint is a real bonus. My main gripe is that they are just poorly designed for easy servicing especially in tight spots where there is not alot of room to dismantle the machine. I hate putting the canisters on a dirty floor because it just doesn't look hygienic(especially to customers)but in some locations I just have no choice but to use the floor. The poor design also makes money collection much more time consuming. I can empty any of my 3 select machines in a fraction of the time.

Reading all these pro's and cons of the Uturn 8 selection machines and I agree with gumball guy on the small foot print. While I use the Vendsign I too have to have a place to put them canisters. I allways have a clear plastic storage container to put the canisters in and never put them on the floor.

Just this past week I was looking :o at a Uturn Terminator that was long due its owners maintenance - I saw empty bins and most had little product left in them. Machine looked nasty. I talked to the operator of the business and she told me they were paying her a commision and she was wondering when they would come.

I'm hoping to be able to get one of my Vendesign 4 in 1 machines in there soon!

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