U-Haul of Kirkland

I rented a 10′ box truck on-​line and boy am I frustrated! U-​Haul is such a bait and switch! Advertised rate was $ 19.99 for the rental, then insurance, then .89 per mile (what a rip off!) plus other advertising, apparently «out of date» yet posted on the wall at the rental counter says .29 per mile. So I sign the contract already feeling a little miffed THEN I find out that I need to fill up what gas I used for the rental (meaning the .89 DID NOT cover the fuel charge) then the rental tax which is on top of the sales tax then the environmental tax.
Shame on U-​Haul for not being up front or clear about all the additional fees –or– for putting it in «the fine print». You should not have to work so hard to uncover the real cost. Todays business transactions should be transparent. U-​Haul is happy to boldly advertise $ 19.99 for their rental but hides all the other changes. So total charge for 4 hours was not even close to advertised rates $ 74.64 for less than 30 miles! I will never use this company again.

Ken (general manager) and his team run a very efficient and customer oriented operation. I stopped by schedule installation of a hitch. James was very helpful and offered to do it right then. That was so impressive that they could fit me right in. I was not able to have the hitch installed right then because of other commitments, so I scheduled an appointment for the next weekend. I was there at a very busy time (8am on Saturday). James got to work right away and had me out of there in an hour. During that time, I observed the team get at least 15 customers their rental vans quickly and efficiently. It was quite the logistical production that was pulled off very well. I recommend this location highly.

About $ 50 to rent a 10 foot truck with 15 miles. Booked a reservation online for a truck, and as soon as I arrived, it was ready to go. I am pretty sure from start to finish, it was a 5 minute transaction. The staff member was super helpful and efficient. As soon as everything was paid for, the U-​Haul was just being pulled up by someone else for my use. I was really impressed by the whole interaction at this location… Just wished there wasn’t so much pressure to up sell.

Very helpful staff. Stopped by to get a trailer hitch extention on our way out of town for our motorhome. Thank’s guys!

So… I went to return an unopened item today with my receipt, and was a refused a refund because I wouldn’t give them my private phone number. I gave them my name and address, but told the employee that my number was unlisted. He was extremely rude and refused to give me a refund because I wouldn’t give him… my number. I even offered to make one up for him, but he seemed determined not to grant a refund. I have never had this experience in all my years of doing business with ANY company, so just be aware that this particular shop has a lot of bad reviews for a reason. Good luck everyone!

Lowest quality of service! Avoid this shop. I went there to have a hitch installed and they forgot to cut a plastic. The plastic melted on the exhaust pipe that melted part of my bumper. The manager from there doesn’t assume any responsibility. This is the second time I had a hitch installed there with problems. First time they lost some plastics from the trunk and never paid for them and now he said he doesn’t believe the bumper trim melted because of his stuff.
Totally lame and irresponsible.

This negative review is not about this Kirkland location. It is more about their call center service located somewhere thousands of miles away. I heard that it may located in Arizona.
I called the Kirkland location, not knowing that my call actually routed to somewhere else. I wanted to install a trailer harness wire package. The lady on the phone said she can book an appointment for me first thing tomorrow morning. I said that would be wonderful. She gave me a quote and the price was about $ 100 for both labor and parts. I was happy.
Then she asked my credit card number to ensure the apartment. I started to feel not comfortable. I started to ask questions, such as what are the reasons that UHaul needs me to pay first. At this time, I realized that she even did not ask my cars’ model and the year it was made. I started to ask more details about her quote. She could not answer any one item detail and she hanged up the phone.
I called again. This time a Kirkland local store guy picked up the phone. He told me that he does not have the parts and he is short on staff to install. But he booked an appointment for me next week, no credit card was needed. He asked me to check other locations that may have parts and labor to install for me earlier.
From this experience, the call center girl did not know any details about my request. If I paid her quote and came to the store for installation, It would be totally wasting of my time because the appointment was a lie, there would be no labor not parts that were waiting for me at the Kirkland location.

I had a terrible experience with uhaul of Kirkland. I made an appointment to have a trailer hitch installed, I even called first to make sure they had the appropriate hitch and were up to the task. They assured me that they had the necessary hitch and were very capable of installing it. They were not! They didn’t set my appointment, and they were incapable of installing the hitch on my make and model. Their communication is subpar, and they will not return phone calls. Use this place at your own risk, I found them to be unprofessional and a complete waste of time!

If you are looking for friendly, attentive, and stellar customer service, I suggest you go ANYWHERE else but here. I’ve used this location several times since I moved here for both van rental and propane and in the past, had wonderful experiences, hence why I would rather drive over here than use a place closer to where I live. But after my recent experience with their «staff» (and I use that term loosely — they aren’t fit to work with animals), I will never come back. Well done guys… thanks so much for doing me the favor of existing — I assume that is what you were trained to believe since that is how you behave. Now I’ll do you the favor and take my business elsewhere…

So bad. Filthy, filthy van appeared to have been used for hauling landscaping plants — possibly without planters. Dirt clods scattered around the back so I called, talked to the manager. He offered to take it back and give me another van (an incalculable gamble after getting one crapped out vehicle from them) so I figured I could clean it up in less than 30 minutes, the round trip time to U-​Haul. He said he’d credit the cleaning charge which turned out to be an empty offer in multiple ways. The cleaning charge, per the contract, is apparently whatever they feel like charging so the offer meant nothing. Then he actually credited me NOTHING.
I actually spent about 90 minutes cleaning because as I swept the dirt off the mat more and more kept coming loose. I tried rolling the side of the mat over to centralize the dirt — more dirt. Finally I wrestled it out of there, shook the mat off and then swept it. Swept the van out, not easy as a 6’1″ man. Found I was late for everything when I was done, got in a parking conflict with my old landlord and missed out on a full load of shipping ability due to the delay.
The correct answer to this would be to refund the whole rental fee and pay me $ 500 for my cleaning services (hourly rate $ 100, 5x for combined night/​weekend/​holiday rate.)
Do not rent from this location and ALWAYS CHECK YOUR RENTAL BEFORE YOU LEAVE.

Two total stars for this location should tell you something. Kenneth the manager was rude and not helpful. If the condition of his garage represents how he runs the business, it’s a mess.

Awesome service here! On our prep to move across the country, my husband had this uhaul install a hitch on his truck. They did it, it worked excellent.
We bought moving boxes from them and when we went to leave, it started to rain. We had no place to put the moving boxes but in the back of my husband’s truck. I accepted that the top box would be ruined by the rain. Just as we were about the leave, a uhaul worker cam scampering out with some plastic bags and a blanket for us to put over the moving boxes so they would not get ruined by the rain! Talk about customer service! EXCELLENT!
We also rented a trailer from them to transport my car to be towed behind my husband’s truck. NO problems, they attached it and it stayed attached as we drove across the country to NY. Absolutely no issues here, they are all great workers and they helped us out.

The first time using this Uhaul location, things went smoothly and was treated like a valued customer.
This time was much different, I suspect from one simple fact-​dealing with the office manager, Ken. Quite simply, he has limited people skills, treats customers with suspicion, is insulting and makes things much more difficult then they need to be.
I’m fairly certain the reason this location thrives DESPITE the manager, is it’s great location and the much younger employees who understand technology and customer relations.
I like this place, but be prepared for difficulty if dealing with the manager.

The people who run this place are not very bright. Bad service and stupid decisions make this s place you want to avoid.

Uhaul is successful due to the fact that they have no competition. Always ready to take your money in exchange for a substandard truck or trailer likely in need of repair. Today they forced me to buy a drop ball hitch because of their unposted height requirements. The bar was too small in diameter for the hitch, and while it did the job, I thought it was going to rattle my hitch off. When I tried to return the faulty hitch, I was told no returns. This is not customer service. They do not know how to operate in today’s marketplace and deserve to go the way of other dinosaurs like them. I cringe every time I have to do business with them.

I’ve rented UHaul trucks from this location several times for own moves and when I’m helping friends move.
If you understand how Uhaul truck rental works (cost + insurance + mileage), you should be in and out in less then 10 minutes. The trucks are always clean and I’ve never been charged extra for anything. They also tell you that since the mileage + fuel cost is hard to predict, you can fill a gallon of gas for every 10 miles you drive (or prorate).
All in all, it’s close to my place and the people are nice. They also don’t tend to try to oversell you things which yoy may not need (wraps/​dollies) so that’s nice.

Had a quite bad experience here with the service. I even called the customer service and obviously they were useless. I normally rent trucks two/​three times a year and i decided to give up on these guys and give a chance to Penske or Budget next time.
U-​Lost me.

The service quality is horrible here. I reserved a truck at 9AM on ⁸⁄₂₄ (Saturday). I arrived there around 9:50. I waited for 10~15mins, and they said I didn’t show up within one hour, so they just rented out my reserved car!
How could they do this without notifying customers? ls my reservation a joke for them? They tried to get another truck for me, but the first option is «I have a truck tomorrow.» Did the guy think I can change my moving schedule any time? The second option is «I may get a truck at 12PM, but you should call us at 11:30AM to confirm.» It’s not even guaranteed.
I totally can’t trust them again, so I called the UHaul to get another truck at Lake Hill 76 UHaul (106 148^th Ave Né, Bellevue, WA 98 007). Service there is awesome! They are flexible to give me the truck I want.
Don’t try the location at NE 85^th St U Haul. They can let you wait long time and then they run out of trucks even you have made a reservation!

I really hate leaving a poor review for anyone, because I’ve worked customer service jobs before and know how soul-​sucking they can be. Similar to another reviewer, most of my problems were caused by the online reservation service as well as the phone call service. It really does seem like there is a lack of communication between them and the actual stores.
We needed to install a hitch on our minivan for a bike mount. After doing some research, my husband decided that U-​Haul had the best price. The online reservation process went very smoothly (or so I thought) — I put in my vehicle info, and it told me what part I needed and let me select my preferred date and location for the installation. There was also a $ 10 discount for booking online. The part was in stock at the Kirkland store, so I selected the next day (August 6^th). My confirmation email said to expect a call back from the Kirkland U-​Haul to schedule an actual time.
August 6^th came and went, and I received no call. On August 7^th, I tried calling them and was connected to the call center. A very friendly representative took my message and assured me I would hear right back from someone at the Kirkland U-​Haul. Still nothing.
On August 9^th (Friday), I called again and actually got someone at the physical store. I explained the situation and gave him my online reservation number. He said he wasn’t able to find it and that they had never gotten my message from the call center. After being put on hold a few times (he seemed a little out of his depth, but to be fair my request wasn’t exactly routine), he decided we would just make a new reservation. I asked if I’d be able to still get my online $ 10 discount, and he said that wouldn’t be a problem. I gave him the part number I needed, and he set me up with an installation appointment the following Monday (August 12^th).
I went in on the 12^th, and things went pretty smoothly. The installation was complete in less than the estimate given. When I came back to pay for the service, I was told that there was some stocking error they had to deal with before they could print out the invoice and take payment. No big deal; the guy behind the desk struck up a bit of a conversation with me while we waited so I wouldn’t be bored. When they printed up the invoice, I noticed the $ 10 discount hadn’t been applied, so I asked about it and he went ahead and fixed it for me. (In the meantime I also noticed they had tacked on the $ 5 warranty for the hitch without my consent which I was *not* interested in. At that point I figured $ 5 was no big deal and just let it slide.)
The following week I checked my credit card statement and noticed that there were two charges from U-​Haul: one on the 6^th for my original amount and then another on the 13^th for the in-​store amount.
I called their 800 customer service number to get a refund for the online reservation. After having to talk through what had happened several times, she put me on hold and called the Kirkland U-​Haul to talk to the manager. After coming back, she said he would be able to give me a refund if I went into the store. The location is a bit out-​of-​the-​way, so I asked if I could do it over the phone; she wasn’t sure how to answer, so I asked if she could issue me the refund instead. She said she could but that she’d have to issue a complaint, which she clearly didn’t want to do. I said I’d try my luck with the store first.
I called the Kirkland U-​Haul and was connected to the call center again. The very chipper representative told me that the Kirkland manager was marked as ‘online’ currently and that he would be able to call me right back. (Riiiiight.) She verified my phone number, and I waited. And waited.
I finally called back two days later and was connected directly to their store. I briefly explained my situation and that I wanted a refund (starting to feel a bit like a broken record…), and he took a moment to soak it in and told me he couldn’t help me, but that if I didn’t mind waiting he would find someone who could but that it might take a while because they were really, really busy. I said I wouldn’t mind waiting. After a bit, I got another person on the phone. He sounded very harried, apologized, and asked if I wouldn’t mind holding just a bit longer because he was in the middle of several conversations. When he came back, I gave him my contract numbers, and he was eventually able to find my online reservation, cancel it, and issue a refund. He stayed on the phone until I received my email confirmation.
If you take anything away from my review, AVOID THE ONLINE RESERVATION SYSTEM. And don’t expect your call center messages to get through either.

Better u-​haul place than others I’ve been to.
I’ve been to other u-​haul places where they didn’t have a queue of vehicles as backups for your reservation, so you end up waiting for a call for when the previous renter gets around to turning it in…
But at this place it’s RARE for them NOT to have a vehicle available for walk-​ins let alone for reservations.
Plus, every time I’ve rented they went above and beyond to warn me that parking my car in their neighbor’s lot (Outback Steakhouse) would get it towed.
Totally something they don’t have to tell people, but it’s WAY cool that they do!