so in my large move i made a few weeks ago, i rented a 14 foot uhaul truck, because they were the only show in town that would rent me a one way vehicle. and since i didn’t plan on driving 1300 miles only to turn around and drive another 1300 miles and then i guess take a plane back i had to go with uhaul. so about halfway through my journey, the truck started having problems climbing hills. i didn’t think much of it, except that the overdrive transmission (an automatic no less) couldn’t handle climbing hills in overdrive, so i turned it off for the hills and turned it back on for the straightaways. well, a few hours later, the transmission started having some problems accelerating on straightaways, and about an hour later i was stuck in rush hour traffic in dallas and moving roughly 10-15 mph. during this time the transmission seemed to be fine. i was able to accelerate on the straightaways, climb small hills and the truck otherwise responded fairly normally.
well, as soon as the traffic cleared, i put the pedal down to accelerate and found that even though the pedal was on the floor, the truck couldn’t go any faster than 35mph. so in my head i’m thinking “wtf??” called my dad to tell him i might need some help with this thing once it finishes breaking down, and for him to at least wait till i can let him know whether or not i need him to drive the 2.5 hours to at least come get my car, which was being towed behind the big truck. i managed to get the truck off the highway and pulled into a gas station, where i parked on the side of the building — luckily they had a HUGE parking lot and i didn’t take up any extra space nor block their driveways. i ran to get a paper towel from the service island and check the transmission fluid, and found NOTHING at the end of the dipstick! so i had to make sure i was looking at the transmission dipstick, and kept checking the level and finding nothing whatsoever. so i went back around to the driver’s seat and found a river of transmission fluid on the pavement. if you want to know what it looked like, check this out.
so i talked to uhaul, they said they would send over a field mechanic to check out the truck and see if they can get me back on the road. i told them the transmission was blown and that i need a new truck but they said their policy is to send someone out first and let them decide. 
ok, so now i have to wait for this guy to show up. uhaul says half an hour, it takes more like 45 minutes or so. the guy shows up, takes one quick look underneath, and says “yep, transmission’s shot, you were right”. *then* he informs me that these trucks do this ALL THE TIME when they tow something behind them. so he calls a tow truck for me, and the tow truck has to come from fort worth — DURING RUSH HOUR TRAFFIC. so they quote me an ETA of about 1hour 15minutes, but it’s more like 1hour 45 minutes when the guy finally shows up. so i’ve been stranded in dallas for roughly 3 hours at this point. the tow guy shows up, then tows me to the wrong uhaul station (i think). these guys are just completely R-U-D-E. they don’t want to deal with me, keep telling me i should “come back tomorrow”. yeah right like i’m leaving my stuff in dallas overnight on a weekend in a rough neighborhood. but anyway, they finally get me going and 5 hours later i’m driving the last 200 miles of the trip. but this is where it gets really shitty…
the people at the dallas office tell me that i should talk to the original office where i rented the truck and ask them to compensate me for the hassle of the truck breaking down. so a few days later i called that office, talked to the manager, and related the above story to him. i never asked for any set amount back, i figured we would negotiate that later if it came down to it. well, it never came down to it, because he told me that i should have called uhaul from kansas when i first noticed that things were not going exactly right. 
yeah, like i’m gonna sit on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere over something that is at best a very minor annoyance. but he tries to tell me that it’s their policy that customers should always call the toll free number for *any*, and he means *ANY* problem with the truck. i told him that i had to postpone a job interview for this stupid truck (which is true) but of course, it’s still my fault that the truck broke down. he suggested i should take some coupons and discounts (which are usually bullshit discounts anyway) as “fair compensation” for my problems. i found his offer to be a bullshit offer and i told him that i would make it my point to tell everyone i know NOT to use uhaul in the future. he offered to pay me “shut up money” of $1000 (slightly less than half the cost of the total rental), but then told me today that he wasn’t gonna do that either. so if you are inspired by this story and feel like uhaul is being completely unreasonable, please tell everyone you know to never use uhaul for any reason. i know that nobody in my immediate family feels the way i do (and not the least because they are my family 
) but it is now my duty to call uhaul on their bullshit. i’m not going to get anything from them at this point (at least they said they weren’t going to do any better than their stupid “discounts” and “V.I.P. coupons”). so please think of this and don’t give uhaul any of your business if you can help it. thanks for listening…
if you’re having trouble viewing this site now, it’s cause your resolution is too small. i can’t do anything for that except tell you to give yourself at least a 1024x768 resolution and you should be fine. now i don’t feel so cramped with my entries, and maybe that means that i’ll be writing much more per entry…. hmmm, wouldn’t that be different?
