Changes in Uhaul Experience

[ImThinkin2019]

Uhaul used to be a reliable place to rent a truck for us. We've used them many times.

This week we did a one-way rental and it was a horrible experience. Got a text the day before we were to pick up the truck, telling us no truck of that size was available but they had one 10 miles away. When we went to that location, it was not ready for business. No sign, no office. The truck was there but we could not get the key. Luckily, there was someone working there who knew how to reach the manager. She drove out to meet us and opened the lockbox so we could get the key. 45 minute delay, in biting cold.

When returning the truck to another city, we used the phone app to select a dropoff location near our house. Drove there, could not find it, and finally called the location phone. They told us "We were going to open a franchise there but we decided not to. We are not in business there." So sat in the truck, calling Corporate, to get reassigned to a different dropoff location. They were open and we could return the truck, but it was not a Uhaul center. It was a trailer sales center.

Both the pickup and dropoff locations were in other businesses. They were not Uhual locations. Googling Uhaul franchises makes us think Uhaul Corporate had a push about 5 years ago to put Uhaul rental services in many other businesses. I can just see a bright guy in Corporate making presentations about this new strategy. Persuading everyone to do it.

Just to check the Uhaul system, I looked locally here to see if I could find a Uhaul center like there used to be. The second listing on the suggested locations list is the business we were sent to that did not exist. One could make a reservation there via the website and find out that no location exists.

We will not be using Uhaul again.

Does anyone know what is going on at the company?

 

[RunningBum]

I've only used them a few times, but I find them to be very uneven in service. Last time I read reviews and chose when with very high ratings and good comments. I don't recall if this was from the UHaul site or Google or what, but my experience was excellent. Other times at other places I've had issues with trucks not being there and other bad service. I suppose the truck issue could be with customers not returning trucks in time but I had one where it was not due back at the time I needed, and I had to put off a move for a day.

I'm guessing you're right that they tried to grow too much.

 

[braumeister]

I used them happily for many years, but my last experience with them was just as horrible as yours, so I said never again. That was 24 years ago. Obviously the loss of my business sent them down the drain.

 

[CardsFan]

In the "old days" we used to say you can have it cheap, quick, or quality. Pick two.

Now you are lucky to get one.

 

[jazz4cash]

I don’t know but I frequently use Seeking Alpha to put a timeline on public company business practices. Looking at symbol UHAL for the parent company Amerco, nothing jumps out at me but didn’t go back very far. The stock is phenomenal over 12 mos, like ->90%. I’ve always found them
To be a very interesting mix of low tech and a marker for demographic shifts in the economy. The have a direct investment program that predates any crowdfunding group if you wanna invest in moving blankets they have the hookup.

 

[Walt34]

I've only used them a few times, but I find them to be very uneven in service.

My experience parallels yours. We don't rent a truck or trailer often but U-haul has been uneven. Some places are great like when I helped my younger sister move (I towed the trailer, no lifting for me) but others have been poor. I thought they were franchises since the service varies so much.

Very often though, they're the only practical choice unless you want to drive 50 miles to another rental place.

 

[zinger1457]

Haven't done any moves in years but since I got rid of my pickup truck I've used U-Haul for daily rentals, $19.95 for cargo van or pickup, to haul material. It's worked out well for me.

 

[grayv]

I was satisfied in 2019 with a couple of local rentals. at a U-Haul branded location.

 

[harley]

Over the past 15 years I've rented trailers a couple dozen times. Never a truck. Both one way and local (as far as they know). Pickups tend to be pretty good, although I've run into the problem with the trailer not being available on rental day and having to drive somewhere unexpected and inconvenient. But drop offs have become a real hassle. A lot of locations don't want you to drop the trailer off, and can be surly and uncooperative. You'd think that would just be part of the business, but I suspect there's something going on behind the corporate scenes that makes it hard on the franchisee. I'll continue to use them, as there's no real alternative. But the company is definitely going down hill.

 

[Bamaman]

I have been watching UHaul for many years. They were once an individually owned company, and the family owners were a father and his sons. They fought like cats & dogs and ended up in a big lawsuit amongst the family. I have no idea what it was over or who came out on top. But it is a huge company.

UHaul has rental locations all over our community--most often in mini storage operations. Even our local feed mill keeps trailers & trucks. They've been in a new truck buying mode for quite sometime as I assume those old trucks they had for years and years ended up being junk.

I've not rented a truck from them in a few years, but i'll sometimes rent a trailer. And I've noticed it's an inconsistent operation. They're also opening up mini-storage lots of their own, and putting larger truck operations in them. Their big city locations also install trailer hitches and other hardware.

If I was going to be hauling long distance, I'd be going for a Penske truck that's a diesel and much more fuel efficient. Their trucks are also maintained better.

 

[donheff]

I haven't needed one recently but never had problems in my area. The last encounter I had was three years ago getting a hitch receiver installed in a new car. That was easy to schedule and went without a hitch.

 

[MichaelB]

I get propane refills at U-Haul, and have experienced no change in their service over the years.

 

[always_learning]

When I started researching how to move ourselves 800 miles (and two kids hither and yon), I discovered that the recommendation from internet folk was that Uhauls were OK for moves less than 10 miles but Penske was the choice of distance moves.

In the last year and a half, we rented three trucks and one of those was Uhaul, one was Budget and the other was Penske. Experiences were that Uhaul's customer service was horrible with pick up and drop off, the truck was abused (in the way it ran) and the tires were dry rotted and low on tread, Budget was better and we were indifferent about the whole thing, but we'd do it again. Penske was fabulous from start to finish. Interestingly, with our AAA discount, Penske actually priced out cheaper than Uhaul for the two jobs we compared. If Penske had a smaller truck, we would have used them twice as opposed to just the one time.

We also rented two storage units 800 miles apart and both of those were Uhaul pick up/drop offlocations. My experience in talking to the folks at those locations reinforced my thoughts that I would only ever rent the 10ft or 12ft Uhaul for local moves and Penske for others (their smallest is 16ft, if memory seerves). Both storage places were getting out of the Uhaul business.

On the "leaving town" end, when I asked about renting the 10ft truck for a 2 mile move, they told me that they weren't available and were actually getting out of the Uhaul business. Apparently, they are now responsible for maintaining the trucks but they are a storage unit, not mechanics, so they were stopping the Uhaul offerings.

On the "arriving town" end, I was told something similar to the other folks, but these folks happened to be owned by a mechanic, so he did some of the maintenance and decided the trucks were in too bad of shape for them to be comfortable being responsible for maintaining, so they, too, were getting out their agreement with Uhaul.

Those are just the stories I was told, but it jives with the complaints I read over the course of a year on various forums about ruck rentals while researching our move(s).

We are sold on Penske, now, after our experience.

All of that said, if I had a real Uhaul place to pick up from, I would be OK with that since they tend to have garages for maintenance, but I'd still worry about the tires as one of the most common complaints I read online was that the 'lot rot' tires often exploded while on the highways.

 

[HarveyS]

Last June I reserved a UHaul 26' truck, one way 600 miles. Nice truck, low loading deck. Then I checked with Costco. Got a Budget truck for about 40% less. Regular truck with a high loading deck (maybe 48"). Not too much of a hassle loading as it came with a ramp. It was great unloading at the storage facility as that facility had a loading dock at regular height. The UHaul truck would not have worked at the dock as the deck is too low.
So, think about where you will be unloading a large truck when you rent. And, if a member, check Costco. Also got low price auto rentals from costco.

 

[JRon]

We have used Uhaul several times in the last few years and have had great service. Good to know about Costco, but unfortunately we don’t have Budget anywhere near here.

 

[ImThinkin2019]

Last June I reserved a UHaul 26' truck, one way 600 miles. Nice truck, low loading deck. Then I checked with Costco. Got a Budget truck for about 40% less. Regular truck with a high loading deck (maybe 48"). Not too much of a hassle loading as it came with a ramp. It was great unloading at the storage facility as that facility had a loading dock at regular height. The UHaul truck would not have worked at the dock as the deck is too low.
So, think about where you will be unloading a large truck when you rent. And, if a member, check Costco. Also got low price auto rentals from costco.

Thank you! Good to know. We are Costco members so will check this option out.

 

[ImThinkin2019]

After researching a little further, I wondered if getting away from the Uhaul neighborhood stores and going to a traditional Uhaul full service store might be a way to get the experience we used to have.

Checked the local full service store and the reviews were very spotty. A few 4 or 5 star, and more than 50% 1 or 2 star. The few 1 or 2 star reviews I read were either "the associate behind the counter told me my price would be $40 but on my phone when I got done with the rental I was billed $400" or "I was told no truck was available but one was available 1 hour away".

Since the traditional Uhaul store reviews were so bad, I looked at the local Penske store also. Their reviews still had some bad ones but a lot of good ones. The bad ones were mostly related to commercial accounts. And the owner responded to every review. Based on this I will probably give Penske a try next. I like to see a business owner take responsibility for and listen to the customer experience.

 

[pacergal]

We have used the two local UHauls a few times in the past 5 years, short moves of kids apartments. No problems in this area that I experienced.
Good to know about Costco option.

 

[njhowie]

Budget - we reserved small 12-foot truck to move DD's studio apartment back home 4 years ago. We reserved probably a month in advance. A few days before the rental date we received email/confirmation that all was good. We show up, not only is the truck we reserved not available, we'll need to come back in a couple hours as they are expecting a 20-foot truck to be dropped off and we either take that or nothing.

U-Haul - have used twice over the past several years (after the Budget rental) for a small trailer to move DD cross country and then back. I also bought my hitch from them and they installed. Overall the folks and service were good. However, like a number of folks here, both times when I rented, though I reserved months in advance, a few days before the pickup date, I receive notice that the trailer would not be at the location I reserved at, and would have to go to a different location to pick it up. Luckily, the locations where I did pick up were not terribly far away from the location I had reserved at - maybe 5 more miles away. If you look at reviews/complaints online, you will see that this is standard operating procedure for the company. During the online reservation process, they should make it more clear that the pickup location is simply a preference, and that it very well may (will likely) be different.

 

[njhowie]

I don’t know but I frequently use Seeking Alpha to put a timeline on public company business practices. Looking at symbol UHAL for the parent company Amerco, nothing jumps out at me but didn’t go back very far. The stock is phenomenal over 12 mos, like ->90%. I’ve always found them
To be a very interesting mix of low tech and a marker for demographic shifts in the economy. The have a direct investment program that predates any crowdfunding group if you wanna invest in moving blankets they have the hookup.

UHAL has been through bankruptcy in 2003, the end result of a squabble within the founding/controlling family. Today, the company is extremely strong and with the massive exodus from big/expensive cities, business has been extremely good.

As far as the crowdfunding - it is not "investing in moving blankets", any more than a mortgage lender is investing in houses. It's lending money to a borrower with some sort of collateral securing the debt - which the lender will take possession of in the event of default by the borrower.

 

[jollystomper]

There is a neighborhood U-Haul store in a gas station a couple of miles from us that one DS has used several times in the last 2 years for moving. He has not had any problems with them. He did go to school and play sports with one of the sons of the current station owners and they have known him since he was in kindergarten, so that could be a factor . But generally I have heard good things about their business.

DW and I haven't had to use a U-Haul since moving into our first condo 35+ years ago. Moving kids in an out of college was done with an additional minivan rented from a Megcorp-discounted car rental company. The rates were so much better than U-Haul and we never had anything that the minivan could not handle.

 

[jazz4cash]

.



As far as the crowdfunding - it is not "investing in moving blankets", any more than a mortgage lender is investing in houses. It's lending money to a borrower with some sort of collateral securing the debt - which the lender will take possession of in the event of default by the borrower.

I was trying to be funny so maybe I should’ve used an emoji. My point was that for an old school company, they were fairly innovative in this aspect. One of the recently filled investment opportunities was in fact secured by furniture pads AKA moving blankets. At 2.25 % for 2 years I would’ve definitely considered investing even though there is probably no way to really evaluate the collateral.

 

[Crewer]

It's been 5 1/2 years but I wasn't happy when we showed up and found out at the time that they didn't have the size truck we're reserved (with a credit card!!). They "gave" us the larger size or maybe it was two sizes larger. We put the very few belongings DD had in it and drove the behemoth from Austin to Dallas. Not fun driving that huge thing. And of course gas costs were much higher. Of course we were renting in prime time - Aug 1 probably. I figured like every other business they are running lean. Was someone supposed to bring it back just before we were to get it? Or they may have rented our truck to someone who walked in figuring thge people who reserved it would be there rarin' to go and not ready to search for other options. I.e., we were captive so they could do what they wanted and the other guys might have walked. If I ever rent again I'll look at more options and have them ready so I don't need to get stuck.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

We have used them a couple of times in the last 12-18 months and didn't have any issues. The last time, it was rented/picked-up/dropped off without talking to or seeing a single person...it was all done through the UHaul application (before COVID). I know many are independently owned/operated so maybe we just lucked out?

 

[harley]

At least when you're renting a truck, you have other options. Budget, Penske, etc. I haven't found anybody else that really does trailer rentals. So I'm stuck with U-Haul, even though their customer service seems to be going down the tubes.