U-Haul of St Johns

I originally arranged to drop off the trailer I’d rented from Missoula in Hood River, but we scrambled our plans around and I ended up dropping it off at this location – and, a day late. They made it all NOT my problem, and I was out of there in about 5 minutes. First-​rate service, thank you!

The staff here is fantastic! The manager (his name is spacing me) is so nice! Rented a truck a few times from this location and will definitely use them again next time we have to move. Thanks for the amazing customer service :)

Bill Stone is the best GM in the world. He went above and beyond to make my day better; true quality customer service.

I can’t recommend U-​Haul of St. Johns enough — and that’s despite the fact I’ve had issues with the company in the past. I purchased a tow package online and within 10 minutes, I received a call from Cliff to set up an appointment to have it installed the following day. I went in, he told me it would take approximately two hours to install, I left to wait and they called me because it was finished early! Fast, friendly and professional. It doesn’t get much better.

I should start off this review by saying that it is specifically for the U-​Haul of St. Johns location. I have had nightmare scenarios with U-​Haul as a national corporation in the past, and was looking for any other option for a recent move from Portland back to SF. Don’t get me started on the month-​long delay caused by U-​Haul when we moved from NYC to Portland two years ago… Unfortunately U-​Haul has the best network of locations and it was the most convenient company for the move from Portland to SF that I just did.
In anticipation of problems I reserved a 10′ truck two weeks in advance, knowing that when you make a reservation with U-​Haul it’s not always locked in. So of course a little less than 48 hours before my truck pick up I get an email from U-​Haul reminding me to schedule my truck pick up. I went to the link and it said there were no 10′ trucks available in the Portland area on the day I had originally reserved it for… I’m not sure if this is to «forcibly» upsell customers into a larger and more expensive truck (the system said only 14′ trucks and larger were available), but right away the next morning (the day before my original reservation) I went to U-​Haul of St. Johns to verify the situation.
I was panicked because I was nervous enough driving a 10′ truck by myself for 12 hours; I did not want to have to drive an even bigger beast. I’m not sure if he’s the franchise branch owner or the branch manager, but when we went in to check out the situation he knew who I was and that I had a 10′ truck reservation for the following day. He assured me that he was personally going to get the 10′ one-​way truck that afternoon and I had nothing to worry about. He even called U-​Haul central command or whatever it is and made sure my reservation was confirmed in U-Haul’s system, which was also reassuring because they were trying to tell him I had changed the reservation (I didn’t). He also called me that afternoon to let me know the 10′ truck was there at U-​Haul of St. Johns and that I had nothing to worry about, which I totally appreciated.
He went over all the details with me and told me about the Multnomah County tax that they add on to make sure I wasn’t shocked when picking up the truck the next day. He’s a really nice guy and customer oriented. I guess your overall U-​Haul experience depends on the individual locations you deal with, and U-​Haul of St. Johns is by far the best U-​Haul branch I’ve ever dealt with (and that’s coming from someone who has done several grueling cross-​country moves). I wish all U-​Haul branches could be this good. It really took a lot of stress out of a very stressful move.

So last weekend I finally decided to rent a small trailer in order to haul some construction scraps to the dump. You know, the same ones that have been lying around the back yard since I moved in? Yeah, those ones.
Since they’re right in my ‘hood I figured I’d try this U-​Haul location, and I’m glad I did. I was really impressed with their customer service– I called on a Friday afternoon, and just a couple minutes later had a trailer reserved for the next morning. The cost was very reasonable at about $ 19 for 24 hours. They were fairly busy when I arrived Saturday morning around 10 AM, but the store manager was literally running to help everyone.
I needed to purchase a hitch ball mount, hitch ball, and wiring connection adapter in order to tow with my vehicle, and luckily this U-​Haul had a good selection of those items. As I expected, they tend to cost a few dollars more here than they do at a big box hardware store, but sometimes the convenience of being able to get everything in one place is worth paying a little more. Many people won’t know exactly what they’ll need to equip their vehicle to tow anyway; if that’s the case for you, the guys here can help. Whether you just need a ball mount or whether you need a complete trailer hitch and wiring harness installed, they’ll hook you up… pun intended.
The little trailer I rented ended up working perfectly. Since it was light enough to roll around by hand, I was able to unhook it from my vehicle and maneuver it right into a convenient spot for loading… which was great, because apparently my backing up with a trailer skills have gotten a bit rusty. The end result, my yard is looking cleaner than ever before; and renting the trailer was so easy and inexpensive that if I need to do it again in the future I won’t procrastinate for two years…