The Valu Jet of Moving Vans U Haul
Danger: UHaul Vans Can Lock You in Cargo Bay U Haul I would like to relay my experience of a UHaul cargo van I rented this weekend. (I will forgo any complaint about the monstrous $1.69 mil...
U Haul Perhaps I Should Say “I Haul” U Haul With our company we get most of our business on weekends. On most weekends we have to rent trucks and vans, sometimes up to fifteen for the ...
We have used U-Haul trucks on four separate occasions: three times across town, and once on an interstate move. We also go there periodically when we need packing supplies for anything — U-Haul boxes are simply the best we’ve found. It seems ludicrous to spend money for boxes you could get for free from the grocery store, but trust me, spend for them and keep them. There’s nothing quite like having a stock of 50-100 boxes that are all the same size and shape to make a move much, MUCH easier. When we go to the U-Haul depot, we generally receive service that’s a little bit above average, and trucks that are truly the dregs of automobilia.
The first time, we reserved a 17′ "EZ-Mover" for our cross-town move. If you’re not familiar with U-Haul’s trucks, that’s the one based on a 1-ton Ford Econoline van chassis. Well, when the day arrived, they didn’t have any, but the clerk cheerfully offered me the 24′ "Monstro Mover" or some such thing for the same price. If you’ve read other Epinions, you know that seems to be a standard practice. In any case, this behemoth was only one size down from the 26′ International-chassis "Super-Titanic Van," and was mounted on a commercial GMC frame, with a crunchy industrial stick-shift. The box in back was large enough to drive a car or two into.
Luckily for me, I’ve had experience driving 13-ton flatbeds and well-drilling rigs, so the actual handling of the "Monstro Mover" wasn’t a problem for me. Fitting it into apartment complex driveways was. Backing it into a standard driveway, off a standard, curbed residential street was.
The second time we rented, we got our van, the 17′ "EZ-Mover" for real this time, from a Cub Cadet dealer who was also the mayor of the little town I went to school in. This truck was trashed, and it was the one I got to drive from the middle of Michigan to west-central Indiana. The normal 6.5 hour drive became an 8-hour marathon of fighting the 1/4-turn of play in the steering and pogoing from shoulder to centerline the entire drive. The diesel motor made a piercing whine that over-rode all other noises in the cab…the radio became just so much more background noise that I turned it off for the trip. I found that the truck wanted to overheat if I drove at 70mph on the turnpike, but would cool back down at 65mph.
I found out when I stopped for fuel, about 4 hours into the trip, that there was NO OIL in the engine. None. The dipstick was dry. The service plaza only had a single quart of the special diesel engine oil available, so I added that quart and drove the rest of the way. Semi-trucks drove on the far shoulder when they passed me because the truckers were frightened by the weaving hulk of a truck that I was saddled with. A side-note: Never assume you’re a hotshot truck driver and fit a U-Haul into a standard McDonald’s parking spot…you’ll never get a chance to back it out again, and have to wait for 3 people to pull out of the parking spots around you in order to leave.
When I turned the truck in, I think the depot thought I stole it, because it took almost an hour. There had to be at least 50 of the little U-Haul "X" settlement stickers around and about the truck, and the service paperwork had disappeared from the truck.
Our third encounter with U-Haul was another cross-town move, and was actually fairly pleasant. We rented the 14′ "Whatever-Mover" truck. This is the most common one around, I think. It’s basically a box on a 1-ton pickup truck chassis, and the one we rented was in relatively good shape. This was the most uneventful move we made with U-Haul.
The last time we rented, we got another "EZ-Mover," and it think it was the inbred cousin of the one I drove from Michigan. It didn’t have a diesel motor, but rather a clapped-out gasoline V-8 that sounded like it was going to lunge out through the fender when I accelerated or climbed moderate grades. The brakes pulsed like a Stairmaster, and the steering was vaguely like steering a child’s sled by dragging your hands in the snow…the missing horn button didn’t help OR hinder the steering. I had doubts if this van would survive the entire day, but I figured that if the engine imploded there was no way it could be pinned on me, so I simply carried on.
Overall, U-Haul is a prime example of the old saw: "You get what you pay for." They’re far and away the cheapest of the national moving van rental chains, and they’re located everywhere, so it’s easy to pick up and drop off the trucks. We’ve always received relatively friendly service and good packing materials. It’s just the trucks. Please, let these poor things retire to a well-deserved grave.
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Tags: brakes, mover, moving van, moving van rental, moving vans, packing, van rental
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