I didn't imagine it could be this good.
Written: Jun 30 '06
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Pros: Fast, efficient, professional, flexible. So so so worth the money!
Cons: Would have liked to have had more information about what to expect on moving day.
The Bottom Line: This is the only moving company I've had any experience with, but it was a great enough experience that if I have to move again, I'd call them.
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| sprint_sucks's Full Review: North American Van Lines |
Prior to this move, my only moving experiences were (a) Uhaul and (b) the movie "Moving" starring Richard Pryor. So, I was a little nervous, but figured there was no way I was moving three adults, three cars, five cats, a horse-dog and an infant AND all of our furniture 1,200 miles. I'm a grown-up now, darn it, no UHaul for me.
When we listed our home, we immediately got buried in postcards from companies wanting our business. I picked out a few postcards I liked -- real scientific -- and thought I'd call them for quotes. Someone at church mentioned a local company and I looked and it was one of the postcards I pulled out.
The Estimate
I ended up calling two places for quotes. One was really pushing back against me, unhappy about having to schedule an estimator outside of work hours, unhappy about the short window in which we had to work and on and on and on.
But not NAVL. We were moving from Los Angeles to Seattle. So we worked with Andy's Transfer and Storage in Glendale, California. They sent out a guy who showed up on a Saturday morning and walked through the entire house with me. There was a few items we weren't sure if we were taking or not, so we had them included so that if anything, the price might be lower than the estimate.
Now, I had no clue how moving companies did their estimate and I was skeptical that they were just going to give me a number and I'd have no way to quantify it. Not so. When the estimator, Jim, arrived, he sat down and explained to us all about how the moving process works. Then he pulled out a handheld barcode scanner and a laminated sheet just covered with barcodes. Each time he'd enter a new room, he'd scan something indicating the room. Then for each thing we looked at, he had another barcode for that. The process went very quickly, although he explained that estimates were harder with sealed boxes because he it was more guessing about the contents, especially if the boxes weren't labelled well.
After we had walked through the entire house, he went back to his briefcase, pulled out a little printer, plugged in the barcode reader and it spit out 12 sheets of what was essentially an inventory of our house, an estimate of the weight and volume of our contents and the estimated price, right there in black and white. While it was printing I asked him "So, do you ever hear back on how close you were on your estimates?" Silly question. I work in computers, I should have assumed that this industry is no different than any other. He said he gets his statistics every month and he nearly always tracks within 10% of his estimate. (Before the truck arrives at your house it's weighed and as soon as it gets on the road it's weighed again - and you are welcome to follow the truck and verify the weights. I declined, trusting them.)
The estimator was such a nice guy and made it seem so simple and straightforward that I told him he had a deal and cancelled the other scheduled estimate. I figured if they were that much trouble just to get them to agree to come out so I could consider giving them a huge sum of money, that maybe they probably wouldn't be competitive.
One of the things he reminded us of is that some items cost more to ship than they cost to buy, like flour and rice and stuff like that. So as we prepared for the move, we tried to be ruthless in our sorting, repeating the mantra over and over again "Do we really want to pay to move this?"
Our cost in the end? $145 over the estimate.
The Load
Right on time, day of, the gigantic moving truck rolled up. There were three guys, the driver, a mover and a second mover. Typically there are two guys, but the driver has the option of hiring day laborers out of his own pocket so he brought along a third guy to make the job go even quicker.
They came through and looked at everything we wanted moved and then pulled out these rolls of colored numbered stickers. Every box, every item (rake, shovel, etc.) got its own sticker. As they went, they made a list so that they'd know what each sticker went with.
There were several items I was unsure what to deal with, like a mirror and some computer monitors. The driver/mover said that he was very confident that he could wrap them in blankets and get them there in one piece. (He did.) He said the company wanted him to sell lots of boxes but he didn't think that was all that customer-friendly.
Bulky stuff like the dining room table was disassembled. All the pieces used to hold it together were sealed in a plastic bag and affixed to the object they came from.
They loaded and loaded and loaded, like they were playing some weird 3D game of Tetris where all of our belongings were the game pieces.
The boxes were not always placed right-side up, if it the fit better another way. Which is why they recommend packing very carefully, or better yet, letting them do all the packing. (Which we could not afford to even ask for an estimate on.) And why the prohibit liquid products. (Truth be told, we still packed some because it would have cost more to replace them. Fortunately we double hefty-bagged them and put them in a garbage can inside a box.
And then the truck rolled away with a two day window of when it might arrive on the other end, the day after our expected arrival or the day after that. (We left a day after the truck.)
They have some advanced system that figures out the best way to maximize the truck and the space on it. After the truck left our place it went to some place south of L.A. and picked up someone else's belongings
The Move
I don't really know anything about the move itself. But during our travel, we got a call from the local moving company back in Glendale. Linda, the very nice customer service rep. who helped us through the process was calling to say that our credit card had been declined. We found out that we had a daily limit because it was a checkcard. We were able to get an increase, but it still wasn't enough to cover it. They were happy to spread the payment out over a few days. When the movers arrive at the destination, they will tell you how much it really weighed and if you owe anymore. If you owe anymore, you have to 10% of the additional amount owed on the spot and you have 60 days to pay the remainder. We didn't have the cash and they wouldn't take a check so the driver called Linda and she put that on the card, too and we were all good.
The Unload
On the unload, it was just Dave the driver and Mark Anthony the loader. They didn't have a third guy and they spent a lot of time complaining about the guy who helped them the first time. They quickly unloaded everything, asking along the way where we wanted everything and putting it all precisely where we asked for it. They reassembled everything and were very careful on the new hardwood floors and new carpeting.
Not everything came through completely unscathed. The microwave had some light superficial scratches in the plastic on the front. Some boxes were a little crunched. The ones most likely to be crunched were the ones from my mother-in-law, older boxes many of which were not well packed or sealed. Also two small fiberboard bookcases, but they said when they packed them that they didn't travel well.
What Was Lacking
I would have liked to have had more information on what to expect on move day. We tried to pack to the best of our ability, but we didn't know what to do about large items we couldn't find boxes for. We scoured the website trying to learn more about the self-pack option but there really wasn't much information.
Recommended:
Yes
Punctuality: Showed up on time
Ease of Filing Claim: N/A
Lost Goods: No
Amount Paid (US$): 5100
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Epinions.com ID:
sprint_sucks
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Location: Seattle, Wash.
Reviews written: 108
Trusted by: 26 members
About Me:
Crikey.
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