The FTC Is Here To Solve The Broken McDonald's Ice Cream Machines

Someone at the United States Federal Trade Commission is clearly tired of the McDonald's ice cream machines being broken and that has led to the FTC contacting the fast-food giant franchisees to see what the problem seems to be, according to the Wall Street Journal.

It's no secret that a McDonald's ice cream machine breaking down is about as common as Michigan losing to Ohio State or Joe Biden refusing to take an Afghanistan question.

But now the government is on the case and you know they'll get to the bottom of things.

The problem, in a nutshell, is that the machines are susceptible to breakdowns resulting from a heat-cleaning cycle that is known to fail, and when it does fail, a repair technician is required to fix the issue to get them working again, the WSJ reports.

McDonald's corporate bigwigs say they're going to use a two-pronged approach to fixing the issue: train crew members so they don't cause the machines to go down and doing regular maintenance on the machines.

So what can the FTC do to make sure these machines stop going down? It sounds like the Trade Commission wants to know if there's any funny business going on between suppliers of the machines and whether there's any wrongdoing going on.

And while you wait for the gears of government to do their thing, you can use the site McBroken to figure out whether your local McDonald's ice cream machine is down for maintenance. How is it possible to track whether a McDonald's ice cream machine is broken? Here's how a really smart guy made it all happen.

And if you want to take a deep dive into the McDonald's ice cream machine to see the war between food-equipment behemoth Taylor and how the company keeps the inner workings of the machines secret from restaurant owners, Wired wrote about this back in April.

Two tech savants fought back against Taylor and created a device that hacks into the machine and offers troubleshooting solutions. Needless to say, Taylor wasn't amused by this development.

You best believe someone at the FTC read that report and decided it was time for the government to get involved because you know that's what will end this war between consumer, machine, and the equipment seller.

Stay tuned. Go grab an ice cream.