U Haul A Differing Perspective U Haul

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First, let me say this — I work with U-Haul every day, as manager of a self facility that offers U-Haul trucks for rental. Am I biased? Yes, probably. Am I also honest? Yes, I am. I’ll give you the good and the bad.

I don’t work for a U-Haul Center, I work for a U-Haul Dealer. The difference is that my business is not owned by U-Haul, it’s not called U-Haul, but we have worked out a partnership with U-Haul where they supply us trucks, we rent them for a small commission.

Let me clear a few things up, first off.

We don’t own U-Haul trucks. The ONLY entity who owns a U-Haul truck is U-Haul. We don’t supply our own trucks. If we did, we wouldn’t be affiliated with U-Haul.

The service of a U-Haul Dealer is directly dependant upon THAT DEALER; not U-Haul themselves. I don’t work for U-Haul. I work for a company. I just happen to rent U-Haul trucks. It’s like saying that Coca-Cola’s company has terrible customer service, because they cashier at 7-11 was rude to you!

If you receive poor service at my facility, it’s MY fault, not U-Haul’s (even if you’re renting a U-Haul truck). If, however, you receive poor service when calling 1-800-GO-UHAUL, their corporate scheduling and reservation number, then it’s U-Haul’s issue (actually, that’s contracted too, but directly to one national company closely partnered with U-Haul). In honesty, it IS true that there is often a wait involved when calling them, especially during very busy times (like Saturdays).

U-Haul maintains all U-Haul trucks, whether they are one way trucks or rotation trucks (for local moves only). Even if the U-Haul truck is CoStarred, meaning it has the logo of the local site on it, it’s still maintained by U-Haul. From my experience, their trucks are well maintained. Every 3000 miles, they are serviced, whether they have maintenance issues or not. When a truck comes due for it’s scheduled maintenance, we usually receive a call from U-Haul within 30 minutes of truck check-in stating that they’re on their way to get it for regular maintenance!

The flip side here is that it IS true that the trucks are often driven long and hard. U-Haul offers insurance that covers nearly ANY damage you can do to a truck. So, people are careless with them as they are with most rental cars; and occasionally inexperienced people might put unleaded gas in a diesel tank, or vice versa. Rental trucks, in general, get a LOT of wear and tear; it’s the nature of the beast.

I can understand why some people may think that U-Haul trucks are expensive; however, if you look at the charges compared to those of other major companies, or especially , they stack up very well. Truck daily cost is generally the lowest of all major rental companies, then you add insurance and mileage. That’s standard with nearly all rental truck (and rental car) places.

Overall, my experience with U-Haul has been generally good. Sometimes they’re a little slow on the phones, or there is an issue getting the right truck to the right location at the right time. I’ve never had a truck with severe maintenance issues (remember, I rent them — I see a lot of trucks go through! It really IS a minority) and I’ve never had a U-Haul employee be rude or unhelpful. However, most of the time you’ll never deal with a U-Haul employee. You’ll deal with me or one of the thousands of other people like me, who run a place, a hardware store, a mechanic’s shop, etc., and also offer U-Haul trucks in the same way that a 7-11 offers Pepsi.

Just my two cents from a different perspective :)

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Tags: moving companies, rental cars, rental com, self storage, storage, truck rent

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