Uhaul Story

Please Read, IT IS YOUR LIFE ON THE LINE! U HAUL=U NSAFE, wheels fall off, loose hitch U Haul

Use them as a last resort. U Haul Where do I start. I've had many dealings with U-Haul, having 10 addresses in the past 6 years due to college and graduate school. Trucks...

Terrible Company, Idiot Employees U Haul I needed to rent a "4 wheels off the ground" car carrier from a Uhaul in Moorestown New Jersey over the past weekend. What resulted was the...

UPDATE 31 August 2004!!! The nightmare continues. U- Haul called us again (!) This is pretty much 4 weeks after that death trap broke down. This time it was the local office. They said that they do not have their truck and we are getting charged for every day the truck is not back. After I called them (again!) and told them what I told to seems like half the U- Haul corporation, they still don’t know what they are doing or what they did with their own truck that they themselves arranged to be towed. The person on the phone, who happened to be the local manager, said that they have no info regarding what happened to the truck, despite the fact that U-Haul emergency roadside service arranged for the tow, and despite that I told about 5 different people at U-Haul about 10 different times what they did, and gave them all the appropriate info, including the reference number that the U-Haul emergency roadside service at the 800 number gave us. This cannot be happening, can it? Someone wake me up…Read my original review and my first update for the whole story.

UPDATE! 8 August 2004 !!! It ain’t over yet! U-Haul lost their own truck! This is hillarious, you gotta read it.. Scroll to the bottom.

Original review , 5 August 2004

DO YOU WANT TO DIE IN A U-HAUL TRUCK? I very likely could have, and so could my family members. I HAD to write this, so hopefully you can read this BEFORE you get into a U-HAUL vehicle and get killed because it has a wheel fall off on you on the highway, as nearly happened to me, no joke. Oh, and the hitch we had U-Haul install came loose a while back. So there are two stories below, read them and make up your own mind.

First story … “The Truck of Pain”

Part One: The Truck

We rented a U-Haul truck in order to move, which involved some medium distance highway driving. It was easy to rent over the phone. The only truck available was the biggest truck U-Haul has, the 26 footer. This truck is bigger, longer and taller than a typical UPS truck, so you can have something to compare it to.

Picking up the truck was easy. We walked in at the appointed time and after a short wait, we were given a truck. The person that drove this truck before was overheard saying “This truck should not be on the road, it is ready to retire”. At that point I asked if there were any other trucks available. I was assured that the truck was fine, and that no, there were no other trucks. So off we went with the keys to the assigned vehicle.

The first impression of the truck while approaching it was, “it sure looks beat..” I am not easily affected by external appearance, which, after all, is purely cosmetic. Scratches and dents do not have any effect on safety. I assume that U-Haul has some sort of safety inspection after each trip, before the truck is handed off to the next customer. With that said, this truck looked like it had a long, hard life, during which it received more than its share of scratches, dents and beatings. Many vehicles have to be looked at closely to see imperfections. This one, it only took a single glance.

Having a schedule to keep, we got into the truck and were on our way. This truck should have never passed ANY kind of inspection. Along the trip, we discovered that interior dash lights were not working, left front turn signal light was physically missing, BOTH driver and passenger side locks were broken (more on that later) and various controls inside the cabin were not operational. Plus, the fuel tank appeared to have moved from its mount points, the batteries were not secure, passenger side mirrors (crirical for truck driving) were loose and moving at any speed above 20 mph. Fortunately I had some tools with me so I was able to tighten them up. Initially though, I had a friend hold the mirror in place for me when needed.

What a piece of junk..The maintenance log book was also a mess, with loose and missing pages in a dirty pile.. Also the oil filler cap was MISSING. Most of those things can be lived with, but I mention them because it shows you the attitude of the company. Moreover, lack of oil filler cap, as I discovered when I went to check the oil at a gas station, signaled that most likely no one cared to inspect the truck in who knows how long.

At one point, when we all got out of the truck at a gas station, I locked both doors. Upon returning to the truck, I found that both locks were broken and I could not unlock either door with the truck key! Fortunately, the truck had these little side vent windows and one of them happened to be partially open, so I was able to open it and reach in and unlock the door from the inside.. .what a nightmare..

Let’s get to the main event. It was dark on the highway, as we were moving along at about 65 mph posted speed limit. There was a construction area up ahead with flashing construction lights… I slowed down with the trafic to about 30 mph. At that point all of us noticed smoke pouring out from the right side of the truck hood. I thought to myself, “the engine must be on fire or the oil spilled and is burning real bad..” I quickly pulled over right before the construction area and popped the hood.

Even though it was dark, I was able to see that the smoke was not coming from the engine, but from the right front wheel. I thought to myself that it must be the brake fluid leaking on the hot moving wheel parts. Try as I might though, I could not see any brake fluid anywhere. Something was not right with the wheel either. While it was parallel to the truck, it was about 20 degrees off the vertical plane. I had a little keychain light I had almost forgotten about.. at that point I got it out and I now had some light to look at the wheel with.

I was shocked by what I saw. In front of me, there was a huge gap between the top of the wheel and where it mounts to the axle. In the gap, I could see the wheel bearing, covered in grease.. so it was the grease that was burning. I work on my own cars, and I estimate that wheel was half way off the axle, coming off at an angle. Most likely the main wheel bearing was failing. At that point I felt very lucky and thanked the Gods of Construction and appropriate goverment agencies for placing that construction area in front of me, which made us slow down and notice the problem. Had it been otherwise, we would have continued for another 2 hours at 65 mph, probably to a very sad ending of our lives. Very bad things happen when you lose wheels at highway (or any ) speeds.

Part Two: The wait

Thanks to a cellphone I had with me, I was able to promptly reach a U-Haul emergency roadside line, and was promptly placed on a half hour long hold. Eventually I was able to talk to someone, and was told to expect a mechanic in a (presumably) tow truck within 1 hour. As an added bonus, when I asked what would happen to us when and if the truck gets towed, I was pretty much told that it is up to the towing company. I gathered that if the tow truck did not have seating for several people, we would have been left on the side of the road. The U-Haul representative did nothing to dispel that notion and pretty much told me that it was up to us to get out of this situation, they only care about their truck. We were not even promised a tow, only that someone would come out and look at the truck.

We were able to arrange for a ride from a friend who lived 1 and a half hour away. The friend arrived before the mechanic/tow truck. This is now 3 hours after my initial phone call. Over the last hour I tried calling again, and was again on hold. Thank the stars for extended life cellphone batteries. I estimate that I spent close to 1 hour and 20 minutes on hold, on cellphone… Close to midnight, the mechanic in a tow truck shows up. That is nearly 4 hours after the breakdown. The mechanic took one look at the wheel and said something like, “It was gonna go anytime, you are lucky…” From the look of the tow truck, I doubt it had seating for all of us. I don’t know what we would have done if we could not get our own ride.

The End

Story Two: “The Loosey Hitch”

This will be a short story. We had U-Haul install a hitch on our vehicle a while back. About a month after the installation and a few tows, I hear a rattle from the back. No, it was not the muffler, nor was it the spare tire or anything else. The hitch was loose! Now, the way the hitches are installed, with lock washers, when torqued to proper specifications, they cannot come loose under any circumstances I can think of. Besides, the vehicle did not experience anything but ordinary on-road driving at that time. The conclusion is, whoever installed the hitch was incompetent, and either did not use lock washers in proper locations, or did not torque the bolts to proper specs.

I am sure you can imagine what can happen towing a fully loaded trailer with a loose hitch…

Conclusion:

I would hardly waste my time writing a review over small albeit annoying things that do not affect safety. But in BOTH of my encounters with U-Haul the issue WAS safety. From reading other reviews I gather I am not alone. In both instances severe injury or death could have resulted to us or other people. There are alternatives to U-Haul, use them.. don’t take the chance…it’s your family’s life.. and when you are on the highway, stay away from U-Haul trucks. You never know when the wheels are gonna go.

This is where the original review ended. I thought it was over. Well, with U-Haul, apparently it is not over until someone fat in their customer service sings…

To recoup, we broke down, I called U-haul, they dispatched a tow truck. In the morning, even though I did not have to do it, I called the local U-haul where the truck was rented, and let them know what happened, together with all the appropriate reference numbers, etc. Simply because I am a courteous person and like to tie all the loose ends. End of story, right? It would be, with any normal company.

On the third day after the main events, we get a call from the U-Haul district office, stating that they show the truck 3 days overdue, and if we don’t contact them and tell them what happened to the truck, they will declare it stolen!!!!!

Let’s see, what am I missing here, or, more importantly, what is U-Haul missing, besides the truck and a few competent employees? Hehe.. I called U-Haul when the truck broke down and it was THEM who dispatched a tow truck. So how come they did not know they towed it? Also, even my call to the local place accomplished nothing. Apparently, different departments within U-Haul are no more likely to talk to one another than Democrats and Republicans in Congress.

There is a saying, left hand does not know what right hand is doing. Well, that is ok, as long as the HEAD knows what the hands are doing. In this case, the HEAD (district office) does not know what the HANDS (local office and emergency roadside service) are doing. All the more strange, considering that they probably have a unified computer system.

So I call the district office, and tell them what happened. I also ask them how come they don’t know what is going on. They tell me the local office has not informed them. Hmm, I say, that is weird, considering I informed the local office the next days, and besides, since it was U-Haul that organized the truck tow, shouldn’t they know about it? I get no good answers to those questions.

I then call the local office. I tell them all over what happened. They tell me they have no records regarding the truck except that it was rented. They tell me, get this, muhahaha, they tell me to call the district office!!! When I ask them why they cannot call emergency service and get information from them, the representative at local U-Haul told me that I should make the calls!

I then ask them, so it was them that towed the truck, them that LOST the truck, and they want ME to call places to sort it out? I already did what I was supposed to, by calling emergency service and following every single procedure outlined in the contract!

Unbelievable! It is hard to imagine any modern company disfunctional to such a degree. I ended up calling the emergency service myself. I then called everyone else at U-Haul I could think of, and gave them all the information that they seemed unable to obtain from their own company, yet I was able to get with a few phone calls. Hopefully this is over now. I am not positive though.

THE END.. Maybe…

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