Friday, I picked up Ray from the airport with just enough time to make it to our appointment with U-Haul to have a hitch installed and pick-up the enclosed trailer we would utilize to load up my bedroom suite for transport to Indiana. The folks there were timely and had our hitch installed in just over an hour. We left, ate lunch, and then went to another location to pick-up our trailer. As the kind man is hooking up the trailer we check to ensure the lights on the trailer work. Brakes…check. Blinkers…not so much. When you would turn on the blinker it would click once, then nothing. It wouldn't even work on the truck. So he unplugged the trailer from the wiring harness and we tried the blinkers on the truck…they worked. Maybe it's the trailer. So we unhooked from one trailer and hooked up to another, plugged in the wire for the lights, and again…brakes are good, blinkers are not. Hmm…sounds like the harness U-Haul installed has a bit of a glitch.
We return to the U-Haul facility who installed the hitch and harness and a young lady comes out, checks the wiring, determines the wires are good and states, "You probably just need a relay kit. Let me call my manager. He'll have to go get one." We're good with this. We simply need it to work so we can get the last of our belongings loaded up for the move.
She's gone for a while so I get on my phone and look up our truck and trailer/blinker issues and, yup, she's right, we need a relay kit. Ray called and talked to his brother and yeah, it sounds like you need a relay kit. I'm on the phone with my dad, yeah, a relay kit should fix that. We're standing around outside with the truck and are getting restless so Ray decides to go in and see how long it's going to take to get the kit there and installed. When he finally returns, his face is red and he tells me that the manager has decided that we don't need a relay kit and since he doesn't think we need one, they aren't going to go get one, but if we wanted one put on it was going to be up to us to get it and install it.
Now remember, U-Haul installed the wiring harness and the hitch. The lights on their trailers do not work with the wiring harness they have installed and they are now unwilling to expend any more effort to make it work.
I looked at Ray and communicated to him, in words that I will not type here, that they could come out, uninstall the wiring harness, remove the hitch and take back their trailer. I wanted my money back and we would leave the bedroom suite in Alabama and purchase a new one in Indiana.
We did just that. We arrived at U-Haul just after noon and left just after 6pm and had nothing to show for it. What a waste.
My advice: Use PODS. They drop the PODS container where you want it, it's even with the ground so there are no ramps to walk up while loading, you call them and they pick it up. You can either have them store it for you or tell them the location and date to drop it and they do. When it's empty you call them back and they pick it up. So very simple. We should have just called PODS like we did on the initial trip to Indiana. We just thought it was a good opportunity to go ahead and have the hitch installed on the truck.
Anyone else have a negative experience with U-Haul?
4 comments:
Which office?
It's the one on Mobile Hwy in Montgomery.
I should have known better. When I originally moved to Texas I used U-Haul. I stopped Saturday night in Florida at a rest area. When I came back out, the truck would not start. Two hours after calling the help line, the mechanic got there, pointed out that the starter was bad and that he could not replace it until 9am when he could get a new starter. The next morning I was on the road by 11am and at 3pm I heard a loud boom and saw black smoke trailing behind me - the motor had blown up because THERE WAS NO OIL IN THE TRUCK. I called the help line again and the mechanic got out there a couple of hours later and said what I already knew - I needed a new truck. An hour later i had a tow truck who carried me to another U-Haul location and the folks there were nice enough to help me transfer all my stuff from one truck to another. The next morning, I checked the oil, tire pressure, the rear door latch and lock, the transmission fluid, the air conditioner, and said a short prayer for the rest of my journey. The rest of the trip went well but I had already added two full days to my trip and had spent 2 nights in hotels due to the problems with the U-haul truck. I never got any of that money back. I had to start my new job the next week and still had to move into my new place, so I never pushed it as hard as I could have but I did promise myself I would never use U-haul again. And I stuck by that vow until we went to get the hitch and the trailer - I thought I was safe since I was not getting one of their trucks. Again, I should have known better.
On a side note, once my beloved wife told me that I could tell them to keep all their stuff and get our money back (something I desparately wanted to do, but it was my wife's beloved bedroom suite), my only reply to her was "I love you." I don't know what I would have done if she was not willing to part with the stuff and I had to continue arguing with the U-haul folks. I will NEVER use U-Haul in any form ever again. And this time I mean it.
I vote u stick to what u know...no more u-hual, pods r the shizzle.
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