Hit or Miss: Two recent experiences with U Haul (Updated) U Haul

bad bad bad bad bad stay away! U Haul I have used Uhaul three times for moving, and had terrible experiences each time. My most recent experience was the straw which broke the...

U Haul is the worst company I have ever worked with U Haul I went to a U Haul office on North Clark in Chicago on 9/28/07 to buy some boxes. There were ten people in line and one person at the servi...

U-Haul seems to have a bad rap these days, but it is also still the company that many of us turn to when we need to move, because frankly, you can”t beat their cheap rates. Having used U-Haul in two separate moves this summer, I”ve concluded that their main problem is their spottiness—unlike most well-known national chains, the quality of U-Haul facilities, equipment, and service varies drastically, and you never know what you are going to get.

The Moves

My two moves involved renting the smallest-size U-Haul (the 10 foot “mini-“) in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and renting a mid-sized U-Haul (I wasn”t involved in this rental so I don”t know the exact size) in Charlottesville, Virginia. These two experiences were a lesson in contrasts, and I think they show pretty effectively what I mean when I say U-Haul is hit or miss.

In Ann Arbor, I did my research online to figure out what size truck I needed and what U-Haul procedures were, and then called a local retailer to make reservations for a local move. The reservations were simple to make; I basically just had to give my name, and credit card information, to which they charged an $80 fee. When I arrived at the facility at exactly the time it opened on moving day, there was ample parking for my car, I was helped immediately in a spacious office, more like a showroom in which a variety of were on display. We drove off in our truck, which was bigger than the one I reserved, but I didn”t mind since it meant fewer trips. We had no problems with the truck”s quality—, air conditioning, etc. all worked fine. When we returned the truck at the end of the day, we simply pulled into a well-marked return lane and went inside. Although I had left my paperwork at my new apartment in all the confusion, they still processed the sale with no problem, and credited back to my credit card the amount of the $80 deposit that we had not spent. I went home and began to set up my new place.

Then there was the move in Virginia. This was a slightly longer move, about 100 miles. Again, we did research online and called the national U-Haul number to make our reservations. We also reserved a dolly with the truck, for an extra $5, to help move heavy furniture. When we arrived at the facility, we found a cramped an almost unmanageable parking lot filled with cars and trucks blocking each other in. To get any vehicle out, someone had to move something else. We entered the “office,” which was a shack, and waited in line for over an hour in 90 degree heat while one man gradually helped everyone. While we had arrived an hour before closing time, we began to wonder whether they would even process our truck that business day. We were finally taken care of, though, and went on our way. After waiting so long, we forgot to make sure that we had the dolly we had requested, and they had not given it to us, so we had to do without. Luckily, this truck did maneuver fine, and again, and air conditioning worked fine as well. We returned the truck after hours at a U-Haul lot in our destination town. A few weeks later, we discovered that we had inexplicably been charged twice—a total of over $300. We have since gotten this straightened out relatively painlessly over the phone, but it was still a hassle.

The pros and cons of U-Haul

As these stories show, you can never quite tell what you will get when you rent from U-Haul. While one would expect equally professional service at any of its locations, this is simply not the case. After you are finished with the web site or the national hotline, you are finished with the national aspects and at the mercy of whatever local retailer they send you to. (For example, there was another U-Haul retailer in the same town we got our Virginia rental, which was much nicer. Who knows why we got stuck with the old icky location instead.) As we found out, this can make a huge difference in the pleasantness of your experience. We were lucky enough to not have any problems with the trucks themselves (except the apparently common practice of giving a different size truck than what you “reserved”), but our experiences with the service aspects of the company were quite different.

What all this means in terms of your moving choices is, I think, that if you can afford better your should get better. I just haven”t heard the same sorts of problems coming from the more expensive Ryder trucks, for example. If you are frugal and/or on a budget, like me, you may want to go U-Haul and simply plan ahead for possible hassles. Of course, this is easier for me to say than for those who have received trucks with bad and leaky roofs. But despite the hassle, both our U-Haul experiences turned out all right, and I plan to try them again in the future.

A few extra U-Haul tips

Here are a few other notes from my recent U-Haul experiences:

Try to buy your materials somewhere besides the U-Haul store. While they may have some specialty items you can”t find elsewhere, most things (like tape) are pricey at this store. Their business seems to rely on people buying there for convenience or, more likely, on people needing these supplies at the last minute. Plan ahead a little and save some money. They do, however, have some supplies that might be harder to find elsewhere, such as plastic bags that fit around mattresses, and furniture pads to protect wood furniture from scratches. You can buy the mattress bags for a few dollars and rent the furniture pads, though I”m not sure how much they cost. And, as I know from a past move, renting the $5 dolly can be well worth it—your moving time will be drastically reduced.

Also, the U-Haul website is a useful place to start but can also be a bit confusing. You can see the different truck sizes available and different prices—both base rates and mileage charges. The site also has functions that help you figure out what size truck you need to get, based on how many rooms you are moving. I actually did not find this to be that helpful; its suggestions didn”t seem to correspond to what size truck I felt made sense. But it would seem to be a useful feature in general, and hey, they probably know better than I do. You can also use the website to find a local U-Haul retailer to call and make actual reservations and ask questions.

[Update: In May 2001, I used U-Haul again for a local move, 100 miles in Virginia. In this case, I learned some more valuable lessons about U-Haul. First, unlike some other companies, U-Haul does not guarantee you an automatic truck. When we arrived and were given a stick-shift, we were quite annoyed because the truck-driver does not drive stick. The rental office did find us another truck, but they were not obligated to do so. The U-Haul representative working the office suggested that reserving a truck on-line is dangerous because it does not give you the option to request an automatic. He suggested that in the future, we reserve by phone.

Second, U-Haul reserves the right to give you a truck bigger than the one you requested. This seems reasonable at first, until you realize that this may mean that you have a huge amount of empty space in the truck, which makes it very difficult to keep your furniture and boxes from shifting during driving, thus making damage much more likely. Further, a larger truck is harder to handle. While we expected a “mini-” (about a 14-foot truck), we got a 26-foot truck, which makes quite a difference in maneuverability! In short, U-Haul has caused me problems now two-thirds of the time I’ve used them; it may be time to try out Ryder or another competitor.]

Finally, as with any vehicle rental, make sure that you fill the gas tank as instructed before returning the truck, or they will charge you far more per gallon than you would have paid yourself.

In short, U-Haul is hit or miss. If you have to use them, just cross your fingers and prepare yourself for problems!

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