All in all pretty satisfied with this. The trailer showed up when it should have (we'll, 90 minutes past the window I think), scheduling pickup was easy and delivery happened when it was supposed to as well. 2 of the 3 truck drivers we interacted with were very friendly and nice guys. Calling in to ABF was nice too, the phone staff pleasant.
I marked it down a star because the bulkhead door was a little broken and didn't have locking pins. We had to bang on the metal bracket the bar goes through to straighten it out enough to move the bar through it. So- wasn't expecting having so much trouble with that.
But all of our stuff arrived with minimal or no damage. I think our furniture had very light scuffing from running against each other- we should have used more moving blankets. And one glass dish broke, but honestly that was my fault at I didn't really pack it well. We had many glass and ceramic dishes that all made it fine, computers are fine, we even packed empty 5-gallon glass carboys that made it. So- honestly that was a pleasant surprise m, we were sure more stuff would break.
We used 17' of the trailer and our truck didn't leave the state. We put an air tag in it to track it ourselves. It made 3 stops- in Chester PA, Carlisle, then Erie. Not sure what if anything they transported with our stuff but it didn't seem to have any negative impact. We didn't cover our stuff with tarps like we should have, but it worked out.
All in all, everything went better than expected honestly, given we were planning for some things to break and nothing really did. This isn't the most user-friendly moving experience, with that big heavy bulkhead. If you want your stuff to arrive in good condition I'd recommend hiring professional movers to pack the trailer, or just do it very intentionally yourself, using some ratchet straps, bungee cords, moving blankets, and tarps. Pack anything fragile in boxes with lots of padding, bubble wrap, fill all the air spaces with packing paper, and don't stack heavy boxes on top of them. It took us so long to pack everything well.. I'd give yourself like two weeks, assuming you're not doing it all yourself and you're moving a two bedroom apartment's worth. I'd give yourself more time if you have more or are doing it yourself. Better to take longer to do things right so your stuff arrives not broken than rush and lose things you own. read more