ABF upack relocube
copyright Randy Melton 2008
This review is a summary of my personal opinions and experience using an ABF upack relocube to ship furniture and tools across the country.
I needed to ship some furniture and woodworking tools from Mississippi to Colorado.
I searched but could not find any truck/car company that rented panel vans for one-way trips. I then priced trucks (penske, uhaul) and the lowest price I could find was around $500. The trip was a little over 1,200 miles and with three dollar gas and my guess of 15 miles/gallon I estimated $300 for the trip.
This combined with the time on the road pushed me to explore other options. I found the web site ubid.com where they offered two options:
- You pack your stuff in a truck with movable partitions and pay by the volume of truck space you occupy.
- You pack your stuff in a "pod" called a relocube, which is loaded onto a truck and shiped to your destination.
Either choice has the option of loading/unloading at their freight depot or at your house (with the latter costing about 20% more in my case).
Quotes
You can get free quotes at the upack.com website.- The website gives you 1 quote without registering your email address.
(You can get around this by deleting all the cookies from upack.com in your browser). - Certain days of the month are cheaper.
There is a calendar on the site that shows discount/premium days.
This is measured from the date they drop off the cube. (Pickup/delivery days do not matter). - They allow 3 days for loading the relocube. I got a Tuesday dropoff and
was told the cube had to be picked up by Friday. (They offered a
Wednesday drop-off with a Friday or Monday pickup.
You are not required to use the full 3 days. We had it picked up on Thursday. - I tried looking online for discount codes, but couldn't find any.
- I used the phone to get a quote without telling them I had looked on the website. They quoted me the exact same amount as I got on the web.
- Playing with the options on the web site I entered "1 full room"
to ship. The quote was $50 higher than when I entered "1/2 room".
I removed the cookies and retried with 1/2 room. I don't believe I changed anything else and the rate was $50 lower. (Note that when I phoned for a quote I didn't mention size but asked for a relocube and it was the lower price). - On the phone I asked if they offered any discounts such as for AAA and was told the didn't have any discounts at all.
- I got a quote from pods and it was 3 times the price of upack.
Pod description
Exterior Dimensions
| Width | 84 inches |
|---|---|
| Height | 99 inches |
| Depth | 75 inches |
| Door Step | 3 inches |
Interior Dimensions
| Width | 82 inches | (door opening is slightly smaller) |
|---|---|---|
| Height | 92 inches | (door opening is 85 inches tall) |
| Depth | 69 inches |
Construction:
- Aluminum floor and frame
- double-wall aluminum/fiberglass walls.
- Solid aluminum roof vaulted in the top middle to shed water.
- Slotted vertical aluminum wall studs. We were able to put s-hooks these slots. These were spaced about every foot of the 3 walls.
- The roof seams were welded and looked waterproof. We did not test it for leaks at the seams but they looked pretty good.
- There were 2 doors on the fornt and they were very sturdy with steel latches at the top and bottom similar to the back of tractor trailers.
- It requires 2 padlocks to secure both doors.
- There is a short hang-down on the front doors. Although the interior is 92 tall, the door opening is only 85 tall.
Pictures
| 
| 
|
Scheduling
- They quoted me 4 buiness days.
- They picked it up on a Thursday afternoon and had it at my local ABF depot on the the following Monday. (I tracked it on their website and it moved all weekend).
- I had a scheduling problem and called them the day before drop-off to reschedule. They made the changes over the phone (on Presidents Day) with no hassels or fees. (I suspect they man the phones 24/7 but am not sure).
Complaints
- The forklifts they use to load/unload the relopods leave tire marks on concrete driveways. I hope to be able to powerwash these off.
- Of the 4 load/unloads one of the forklift drivers cracked the concrete curb at the bottom of the driveway. I think this was just a careless driver. The other 3 were very careful.
