ABF was great, but so is Broadway Express!
Written: Jun 30 '03 (Updated Jul 02 '04)
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Pros: Low cost, reliability, control over your shipment, friendly and professional service
Cons: You do a lot of work, potential for slight damage to goods, possible bulkhead problems
The Bottom Line: ABF and Broadway Express are both great choices for people moving moderately-priced household goods (not fine antiques) who are concerned about cost and maintaining control of their shipment.
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| diane2134's Full Review: ABF U-Pack Moving |
UPDATE: ABF is a wonderful company, but people may want to consider Broadway Express at www.broadwayexpress.net, an alternative that is also excellent. There are many glowing reviews of BE on the MovingScam.com website where I am a long-time volunteer--you can see those reviews at http://www.movingscam.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1935 What BE offers is an air-ride trailer equipped with a walkboard, moving pads, tie-down straps, dollies, and decking material—all for a price comparable to ABF. Most important, the BE drivers will help load the trailer for $25/hour, and the reviews show that they are great at it. I recommend that people look at my FAQ sheet on ABF and Broadway Express at http://www.movingscam.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1771 before making a decision. I have added a comment on my review of ABF (below) that provides further details. I have no connection with either company, but simply want people to know about this additional low-cost option.
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ABF (“Arkansas Best Freight”) is a very large freight company that has branched out to move household goods as well. It can be regarded as a U-Pack, We-Drive mover. The company delivers a 28-foot semi-trailer to your residence and then parks it and drives the “cab part” away. You have at least two days to load the trailer with your things depending on what day of the week the trailer is delivered. You can rent a ramp from ABF for $75 to make it easier to load the goods (a necessity since the bed of the trailer is almost four feet off the ground). After you finish loading, you install a vertical wood or masonite bulkhead (provided) to partition off your household goods from the commercial freight that they will add to fill the rest of the trailer.
You call ABF to pick up the trailer, they add the freight and drive to your destination, and you jointly schedule delivery of your goods at your new residence so that you can remove the bulkhead and offload. You can either have them leave the trailer for another two days, locking the trailer at night with an extra-long-shank padlock that you provide, or you can offload while the driver waits (in our case they allowed us an hour to do this without imposing a charge). If the driver waits, you must be sure to have people standing by to help you offload quickly.
Importantly, your things never leave the trailer in which you loaded them. They are also divided from the other goods in the trailer by a secure bulkhead rather than by rope or cardboard (some other companies I spoke with said they did the latter). And since you have control over how your things are packed, you have control over how many linear feet you use in the trailer, measured from the end next to the cab (this linear-foot measurement plus distance is how you are charged for the move). You also have a lot of influence over whether your things arrive undamaged, since you are the one who packed them. The price is much lower than for a full-service mover. We paid just over $900 for 5 feet of furniture (8 feet wide and 9 feet high) to be moved 1100 miles. Local movers to help us unload cost another $150, plus tip, for two men for two hours.
I had used a (now defunct) U-Pack, We-Drive service for a cross-country move seven years ago and was reasonably satisfied, so I was inclined to go with a similar service for our smaller interstate move this summer. I found ABF recommended here on epinions.com and decided to try them. (There are a few pointers that need to be kept in mind if you use this type of company. I will describe them below under the heading, “Things to keep in mind when using ABF.”)
I have to report that during our move, there was a small glitch involving the bulkhead. One of its load bars (used to hold the bulkhead in place against the sides of the truck) wasn't working properly at the city of origin. I reported this to the dispatcher but it wasn’t fixed. Instead, when the driver came back for the truck, he ratcheted the load bar repeatedly so that it finally held. But then, when we tried to remove the bulkhead at the destination, neither we nor the driver could do so because the load bar had been ratcheted too tightly. Meanwhile two men from a local moving company were standing by to unload the goods and the clock was ticking. Finally they and the driver were able to dislodge the bulkhead by brute force, but it was a tense situation for a while.
Since other people commenting on ABF on this site mention problems with the bulkhead, I think this may be a weak link in ABF’s otherwise excellent operation. I feel that the company should have a system in place so that when a customer reports a problem with a bulkhead, that bulkhead is replaced at the city of origin rather than leaving the customer to cope with the same problem at the destination city. Perhaps the bulkheads could even be examined on a regular basis to make sure that the load bars are functioning properly.
However, all in all, the ABF service was outstanding. Their website (www.upack.com) is excellent and all ABF personnel that I dealt with were professional, friendly, and helpful. They delivered the trailer when they said they would and picked it up when I asked them to. The trailer was very clean and it had a translucent fiberglass top which allowed light to pass through, making it easy to see to pack. I was able to track our shipment on the ABF website and they delivered it exactly when they said they would—four business days after pickup.
I feel that ABF is providing a great service to consumers in this age of essentially unregulated moving companies that can literally take your things and hold them for ransom (see the website www.movingscam.com for some background and a few horror stories). Based on my experience, I highly recommend this company, especially to people who have moderately-priced household goods and are concerned about cost and maintaining control of their shipments.
Things to keep in mind when using ABF—some practical pointers that may be helpful to others using this service:
1. First of all, finding a legal place to park a 28-foot trailer for two days, or at least overnight, in the city of origin can be a problem. I suggest contacting your local police department for advice. They may help you by setting out cones or you may have to find off-street parking. In some cases you may have to take your things in a van to a local ABF depot to load them there rather than at your residence. Parking the trailer at destination is usually not as much of a problem since you can offload while the driver waits by hiring local movers to stand by (as I did). ABF gave me one hour to offload; after that they said they would have charged me for the driver’s time.
2. Also, the furniture that I moved was not of very high quality. There was a bed and a sofa and lots of books, and the rest (such as an entertainment center) was mostly particle board. I am not sure that I would use a U-Pack service to move more expensive pieces. One reason is that the trailers are not air-ride and the furniture gets bounced around a good deal. For example, I loaded our 19-inch TV on a low shelf in the entertainment center with a lot of padding around it so it couldn’t move, or so I thought. At destination the shelf (which was a fixed shelf, not one supported by pegs) had begun to tear away from the side of the entertainment center. This couldn’t have happened unless the shelf had had a lot of up-and-down force applied to it. (This was the only significant damage that occurred, and it was the result of my improper packing.)
3. The point is that amateurs don’t really know how to pack to prevent such damage. If you want to move expensive things, I suggest having a professional check the way you are loading them. Also, don’t skimp on the moving pads and packing materials. There is a temptation to do so because you are paying by the linear foot, but don’t do it. Make a diagram of the 8-foot-wide 9-foot-high space, measure your larger pieces with a yardstick, and have a plan as to how you are going to load. Put heavy things at the bottom and wedge things in tightly (I used a lot of pillows to do this). In our case what worked best was to stand the sofa on end in one corner to take advantage of the trailer height and also stand the mattress and box spring on end just behind the bulkhead so that they were holding the rest of the shipment in place. One driver told me that a common form of damage is abrasion on the sides of furniture where it rubs against the trailer walls in transit. All such surfaces should be protected with pads—old mattress pads work well.
4. I think it would be risky to move expensive upholstered pieces because the trailers can be dusty. Several people on this site and elsewhere have remarked that there was printer toner dust in their ABF trailers. There was some in ours as well—not much, but enough so that if I dropped a pillow on the floor a faint black mark was left on it. (The dust washed out, but not easily.) The floors of the trailers have metal ridges which are clean but the dust hides in the furrows between the ridges. Also, I noticed that although the trailer was very clean when it was delivered, there was a small amount of “road dust” or “blow dirt” (dirt mixed with dried grass) on the floor near the cab end at the destination city. Mattresses and box springs should definitely be covered. We did not, however, cover the whole shipment with a tarp or put a tarp on the floor as some people have recommended. This was mainly because we visually inspected the trailer and saw that it was clean and there were no tears in the fiberglass roof that could let rain in. If you get a dirty or dilapidated trailer, or one with holes in the roof, call the company immediately and ask for a replacement. We had our trailer dropped off midweek and not in the busy end-of-the-month period, which may have helped us get not only a better rate but also a better trailer.
5. To make it easier to load the trailer, have a 4-foot stepladder available at the city of origin. You are going to be filling a space 9 feet high. If you don’t have a stepladder, you are probably going to end up throwing light things like chairs on top at the very end rather than positioning them carefully. That is how a few of our things got scraped up a bit. At least we didn’t throw a bicycle on top, which one driver told us people sometimes do. He said that the pedals, chain, and brake controls can do a lot of damage to surfaces and that bikes should be very well wrapped.
6. Be sure to look at the excellent videos on the ABF website (www.upack.com) so you’ll know how to set up the ramp and position the bulkhead. You can’t count on the drivers to know these things (although ours were very nice and helped us maneuver the ramp and set up/take down the bulkhead, which I don’t think they are required to do). In our case the ramp was turned the wrong way in the trailer and the driver had no idea how to make it work, so we were glad we did.
7. I bought a “fold-away” (collapsible) aluminum hand truck for use during the move and it was very useful. The local movers really appreciated it when they were moving things into our new residence, and it took them less time so our cost was less. The one I bought (Safco 250 Lb. Capacity Folding Hand Truck, 4061) cost only $40 at Staples. Now, with the moving season upon us, I think they are charging closer to $50. But it’s worth it—much better than renting.
Sorry for the long post but considering the extreme stress surrounding moving, I thought I would try to ease it a little by sharing some experiences and suggestions. Good luck!
Recommended:
Yes
Punctuality: Showed up on time
Ease of Filing Claim: N/A
Lost Goods: No
Amount Paid (US$): 930
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Epinions.com ID:
diane2134
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Reviews written: 2
Trusted by: 5 members
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