About U-Haul
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U-Haul is well known for supplying truck rentals and packing supplies to do-it-yourself movers across the nation. U-Haul advertises trucks for $19.95 per day for local moves, but long-distance moves costs significantly more. Additional charges include fuel, damage protection and environmental fees. Even with these expenses, U-Haul can be a budget-friendly option.
Overall Satisfaction Rating
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Pros
- Economical choice
- Roadside assistance
- Nationwide availability
Cons
- Preferences not guaranteed
Bottom Line
U-Haul, when used appropriately, is an affordable option for DIY movers, especially for local moves. Be aware of extra fees and make sure to understand that a reservation is not a final confirmation.
Top U-Haul Reviews
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I rented a truck from the U-Haul location in San Angelo, Texas back in February of 2014. I also rented a storage room from them at the same time. This had to have been the best cu...
Read full reviewWanted to take a minute and review my experience with U-Haul - it was the best! … The people at both ends of the U-Haul companies were so nice, extremely courteous and very helpfu...
Read full reviewHow does U-Haul work?
U-Haul rents moving trucks for local and long-distance moves. Because U-Haul has so many locations, it’s easy to request a truck for a last-minute move. An online reservation, however, doesn’t confirm an exact location, time of pickup or truck size — it only indicates a preference. Be sure to call your preferred U-Haul location ahead of time to check on availability and have flexible plans so you can pick up a truck at another location if necessary.
U-Haul price
U-Haul’s local moves have the following base rates:
- 10-foot truck ($19.95/day): Good for studio apartments.
- 15-foot or 17-foot truck ($29.95): Good for a two-bedroom apartment.
- 20-foot or 26-foot truck ($39.95): Good for a three-bedroom home
Long-distance moves with U-Haul cost significantly more. For a 1,000-mile move, expect prices close to the following:
| Truck type | Estimated price |
|---|---|
| 10-foot | $1,350 |
| 15-foot | $1,400 |
| 20-foot | $1,700 |
| 26-foot | $2,100 |
U-Haul moving services
U-Haul provides additional services to help renters and owners with their moves.
- Insurance: U-Haul’s most popular insurance plan is the SafeMove plan. It includes a damage waiver, which reduces the amount you owe if you damage the rental truck. The plan also comes with cargo, medical and life coverage.
- Storage: Certain U-Haul locations offer free 30-day storage, which is a big perk most other moving companies cannot match.
- Roadside assistance: For a flat $5 fee, renters can tack on roadside assistance. We recommend this — especially at such a low price.
Additional paid services from U-Haul include loading and unloading, packing, furniture assembly and disassembly, moving supplies and trailer hitches.
U-Haul FAQ
- Does U-Haul charge per mile?
- For local moves, yes, U-Haul charges from 59 cents to 99 cents per mile. U-Haul does not have per-mile charges for long-distance moves.
- Is it cheaper to rent a U-Haul one way?
- Yes, one-way rentals are cheaper for long-distance moves. U-Haul has locations all across the nation, so plan to drop off the truck at your destination. For in-town moves, however, one-way rentals might not be cheaper.
- How many miles per gallon does a 15-foot U-Haul get?
- A 15-foot U-Haul truck gets 10 miles to the gallon without cargo.
- Does U-Haul have unlimited miles?
- No. Local moves have per-mile fees, and long-distance moves have mileage limits.
Is U-Haul worth it?
Although U-Haul has more fees than most people expect, a long-distance move with U-Haul is still considerably cheaper than using a traditional full-service moving company. Local moves are also an affordable option. For consumers who want to save money and are willing to do the labor and driving themselves, U-Haul is a worthwhile option.
U-Haul Reviews
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I have had to rent a few hauls over the past 2 months for work and each representative I've spoken with has been wonderful. They've helped me move drop off locations and pick up times, easily changed from 1 to 2 trucks and every time it's been quick and seamless. When it comes to moving anything, it's really no fun but when it's made easier with timely, friendly service - it makes the process that much better. I wish I had names of the gentlemen I've worked with but I made a point to create an account with ConsumerAffairs to leave a review other than with U-Haul themselves. Thank you!
I had a great experience today at U-Haul. The store associates Stacey and Belinda were very friendly and helpful. They gave great advice that helped me decide what reservation I needed to make. They were awesome!!
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It was easy to rent a moving van from this moving company. My aunt and I put a down payment down for it but it wasn't that much. All I had to do was refill the truck back up with the same gas amount that was in it when she purchased it for me. All you need is license and no negative history with the company. If you have an accident you will be charged and refundable deposit will be kept.
Moved from Chicago to Florida. They were very professional, packed what I wanted them to, tv’s, lamps, etc. Took apart Furniture and reassembled at new home. The best part was they stored it while waiting for the closing.
In these days & times, during Covid-19, with a lot of people out of work, & less money to work with, it helps when you can get things like moving accomplished, but with half the cost. Now you still have to be wise in your choice of companies that you choose to work with in the end, but you will save a lot of money by packing yourself, renting your own truck, & doing the driving yourself. The only thing you will need the 2-3 guys for, would be to meet you at your old place & load everything onto your truck, then follow you to your new place, & unload everything off of your truck. After the job is done, you will give them the payment code that they turn in to Moving Helpers, to be paid for the completed job; that's it.
I have used them successfully several times, in & out of state. My sons use them when they were in college, & job transferring. We have never had a problem, & we saved a lot of money by packing & securing the truck & driving ourselves. You will have several companies, within your area to choose from. Everything is done online. Tipping is left up to the customer. I always did, because I felt like they earned it.
My reservation was lost, which is not the fault of this location, but the fault of UHaul. I live 100 miles away from this location and on the morning of the move, we were told that there wasn't a 26 ft. truck available in my town despite the reservation. We went through 2 frantic hours trying to locate one and somehow get it to my home before the movers were scheduled to show up to load it.
We finally reached UHaul's Scheduling Department. They found a truck (after every local UHaul location told us no such truck existed for 100 mile radius), but now we had to find someone, at a moment's notice, willing to drive our vehicle back from the new location 100 miles away because we had to drive the truck back, too. (This meant gasoline costs for our personal vehicle of 200 miles round trip just to pick up the truck). Had it been a local truck, we could leave the vehicle in town, and a friend had agreed to drive it 5 miles back to our home. Miraculously, the friend agreed to drive our personal vehicle 100 miles and take the time to make the new 3.5 hour round trip down and back to pick up the out of town truck.
We finally got the truck loaded and drove to within 2 hours of our new location. The movers hired through Moving Help on the UHaul website, who were to unload the truck, called and cancelled, citing car trouble. Because I had to hire someone last minute to unload the truck, the only people available with any ratings were $200/hr as opposed to the original movers at $75/hr. I had no choice but to hire them. Did you know that if you underestimate the time you need for the move, you will need to pay cash to the movers for the extra time? Well, I didn't have $400 cash in case the unloading took too long and no way to get to a bank two hours from my new home. I had $150 to cover an extra 2 hours at the original rate. That wouldn't cover even one hour with the new movers. So I had to overestimate the time needed so I could just pay online with my credit card. Big mistake.
Did you know if you overestimate the number of hours needed, the movers just get to keep the extra money they did not earn? Yep. So I guessed 5 hours and it took 3. (Mostly because the new movers stuck stuff in the garage or the laundry room to avoid taking things upstairs. One of the two movers was elderly and frail. Felt sorry for him but guess who gets to take it upstairs now?) At the new hourly rate, this meant I had to fork over $1000 for unloading that I had previously scheduled for 4 hours at $75 ($300).
We originally planned to return the truck to the location in the city from which I moved. The driver lives there. But since that truck reservation was lost, we now had to decide whether we should leave the truck in my new city or drive it to the location 100 miles further than anticipated (300 miles one way). Remember that UHaul charges for extra mileage. Also, even if the person drove the truck back the 300 miles, they would be stranded 100 miles from their home, which was in the city from which I moved. And the driver did not have time for the extra 3.5 hour additional drive time required. In the end, we turned in the truck at the new city and rented a car for $400 for the person who drove the truck to get back to their home in my former hometown. Bear in mind that getting a rental car in 2021 with no prior reservation is no small feat.
We searched for hours with every location saying they had no cars. Finally, we drove out to the airport (this was not close by) and every rental place said they had no cars. Finally, skipped the line and went to the "Gold Membership" desk, where the agent said to make a reservation online and they would honor it. Crazy, right? You don't have cars unless I reserve it online (on the spot) and then show you my phone with the reservation number. That is what finally, magically, produced a car. Oh, did I mention that some of the moving supplies I ordered from UHaul arrived so late (days past the promised arrival) that I couldn't use them and had to buy supplies locally because the packers needed them on time? (Anyone need a bunch of packing paper and bubble wrap? "New in Box") Any move is exhausting, but this was a nightmare. Such an expensive nightmare.
I originally reserved for a one way from ATL to NYC. I fell ill during the move and had to be admitted to the ICU. The truck remained in the hospital parking lot for the majority of the rental. After I was released, I wanted to continue the move. U-Haul charged me another one way rental, AND I paid for the in town rental. But, they will only return a portion of the first one way rental stating that "I checked it in at a different location IN THE SAME CITY, so it's still a one way rental!" Not only was the pick up location closed on 7/5/21, but the truck was full of my furniture and personal belongings, so I couldn't just leave it at a location. The result is that I'm paying $77 for a local rental with only 36 miles used.
Their actions are cruel and not taking illness and extenuating circumstances into account. What's more, the SAME DAY I was released from the hospital, I waited in the Sandy Springs/ATL location for over an hour for the renewal to be processed!!! Since then, I've held on the phone for literally hours trying to get help--each time I get a different answer as to why I'm paying $77 for what should be $19.95! At one point, I was told, "you're not going to get all of your money back." Customer care at its finest...
Originally at the pickup counter when the contract was written they mistyped the information and charged us 13 days. Too many. After contacting the company upon completion of the move and the company checking our original reservation and confirming there was an error, they said they would refund the overcharge. After we got the refund of $402, I e-mailed the service person back twice asking about the tax on the $402. I heard nothing and had previously asked about the tax refund on the original e-mail. Then I started over again and sent the e-mail back using their "contact us" system and actually heard back 4 hours later. They were going to refund $32 in taxes.
My problem is this. When my wife made the appointment she asked if there was an issue returning the truck early. They said no problem. We did return it two days early and found out U-Haul does not refund the early days returned. I asked U-Haul where that was written and they said somewhere on the contract, which they did find and e-mail to me, but was written in such small font it was difficult to read and vague in the meaning, which I believe is why my wife missed the extra days they charged us for originally. As for the refund on the early return, when my wife asked, the counter person, they should have told her there is no refund for early return and good luck on finding where it is plainly written.
Also she had an issue with the brakes stopping the vehicle a couple of time. We called and reported it and they said it was up to us to keep going with it or have a mechanic sent out. She was 4 miles from home when it happened twice, but she made it home. Later we found out they issued the vehicle back out with no problems found. As a final note, don't try calling unless you have plenty of time. It took over twenty minutes for the quickest call to be answered. It seems to us U-Haul is trying to get every penny possible without giving the service they used to supply. Also the cab was not the most comfortable to ride in.
Disgusting, my mom was sick and they had put the truck on a very bad location so I had to forcefully park my car which resulted my car and my neck hurt but U-Haul does not even answer my emails. Disgusting.
If you can imagine every possible nightmare with a moving company, this has been my life for the past month. U-Haul was HORRIBLE!!! I would NEVER rent from them again, neither will my family. They consistently lied and had a different story every (16 times) time I spoke to them. I placed my reservation a month in advance for Huntington Beach, CA and kept checking in on it only to have The local scheduler tell me that he wasn’t going to rent a truck to me because I was going one way and he was going to give the rental to other people that were staying in the state. This was after I was told two weeks before that by someone that because I reserved it first I should be fine since they do for reserved first truck. I was suddenly left with no vehicle.
I had to pay someone to drive a truck down from Utah to California to me to be able to move. Then, the 20 foot truck, even though I had asked for specific dimensions, they lied about how big the truck was. A 20 foot truck is actually 16 1/2 feet long with an overhang over the cab that they’re counting as the extra square footage. Only, they don’t tell you that part. The truck wasn’t big enough and I went to the local office to rent a trailer, only to find out it would cost me $5,000 to rent a trailer one way to put my extra things in because they refuse to let their trailers leave the state and would triple fine me for not returning it to that location. After many hours of calling and repairing the story to 5 different uhaul people over the phone (they kept passing me off to other people) they said they’d rent me a 26” for an ADDITIONAL $2800 (plus fees and taxes) to go from California to Utah in top of my other 20” payment I had made, seriously!
On top of being consistently over stressed for a month about the rental, being lied to consistently, and severely mistreated, disrespected and hours sitting on hold by their terrible customer service, the auto transport didn’t fit my car! They asked exactly what type of car I had and the one that they gave me did not fit in my car. It took us two hours and YouTube videos to find a way to get my car to stay on the auto transport. We had to put boxes underneath the tires to lift it so the undercarriage wasn’t scraping. Completely unsafe! On top of that, there was no safety hook attached to the front of the auto trader and because of the faulty equipment it took us an extra two hours driving because we had to stop every hour to double check the straps. By the way, one of the two straps came off during the transport.
Driving the truck wasn’t any better, the transmission didn’t sound like it was shifting gears properly so it really struggled to drive, especially On inclines. It was crazy noisy. It was hell. I hate U-Haul with a passion. They clearly do not care about their customers. They jacked up the prices as much as they possibly could to get the most money possible, lied to me consistently for a month, And completely screwed me over as well as giving me a faulty equipment. Horrible experience. Honestly if I had to do it over again I would’ve paid the extra $500 and gone with Penske or one of the other rental places to begin with.
U-Haul Company Information
- Company Name:
- U-Haul
- Website:
- www.uhaul.com
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