U-Haul steps up vehicle inspections

U-Haul International Inc., the nation’s leading provider of rental trailers and trucks, is inspecting its vehicles more frequently since The Times raised questions about the company’s maintenance practices earlier this year, according to employees, managers and dealers.

Interviews, internal bulletins and a recent field survey of U-Haul equipment indicated that management is pushing employees and dealers to be more vigilant about inspections.

The result is “a more in-depth safety check” and fewer problems for customers, said a manager at a U-Haul center in Northern California. Like others interviewed, he asked to remain anonymous because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the media.

A veteran U-Haul supervisor in Connecticut also described a changed attitude toward maintenance: “Now, if inspections aren’t done when they’re supposed to be, you hear about it.”

A three-part Times series published in June described pervasive problems with reliability and safety at the Phoenix-based company, which dominates the do-it-yourself moving industry. At thinly staffed U-Haul centers, vehicles often were put back on the road after cursory or no safety checks, the paper reported.

U-Haul policy calls for rental equipment to undergo periodic, detailed inspections to ensure that brakes, tires and other components are in working order. The Times series reported that compliance was spotty.

In January and February, Times staff members examined more than 200 U-Haul vehicles in parking lots, highway rest stops and other locations in California, six other states and the District of Columbia. Half of the trucks and more than 80% of the trailers were overdue for inspection, based on a U-Haul policy requiring most vehicles to be thoroughly checked at least every 30 days. Some had not been inspected for a year or more, according to maintenance stickers affixed to the vehicles.

A follow-up survey in August and September suggested that greater attention is being paid to vehicle safety. Newspaper staffers examined 175 trucks and trailers in Southern California, Maryland, Atlanta, Seattle and the District of Columbia. Using the same standard as the previous survey, they found that 80% of the trucks and 42% of the trailers had received timely inspections, according to the maintenance stickers.

As with the earlier survey, there was no way to verify independently that inspections had been conducted. To some extent, the improved numbers reflect a new policy of using stickers to document not only detailed inspections but also less-extensive safety checks performed between rentals.

Several employees said they now receive daily computerized lists of trucks and trailers due for a thorough examination. U-Haul said it has increased its use of computers to track equipment and schedule inspections, repairs and preventive maintenance.

U-Haul began overhauling its inspection program in spring -- before The Times series appeared but after reporters had informed company executives of their findings and asked for comment. Internal memos circulated in May and June outlined new inspection procedures.

Responding to The Times articles in late June, U-Haul Chairman Edward J. “Joe” Shoen posted a message on the company website telling employees that “we have . . . updated our Rental Vehicle Inspection Program,” and that he expected “timely” inspections.

“If you cannot personally attest to the equipment’s condition, ground it,” Shoen wrote.

Company executives declined to disclose details of the new procedures, beyond saying that improving maintenance is “a continuous, never-ending process.”

A longtime California dealer, who asked not to be named for fear of losing his dealership, said that shortly after Shoen’s Web posting, he received a shipment of stickers, along with frequent calls from a U-Haul manager instructing him to step up inspections.

“They’ve been driving us crazy with safety checks,” said the man, one of 14,500 independent U-Haul dealers who rent trucks and trailers in return for a percentage of the revenue.

There have been other signs of a more-rigorous approach to safety. At one Los Angeles-area U-Haul center last month, an employee pointed to a row of trailers that he said had been grounded for brake repairs. The Times series highlighted recurring problems with trailer brakes, including catastrophic accidents blamed on brake failures.

At the same center, employees said that customers who had read the articles asked to check the stickers on rental vehicles to see how recently they had been inspected.

An employee of a U-Haul dealer in the San Fernando Valley said that despite the increased activity, “there’s no way to guarantee that the work’s actually done.” He recalled seeing trucks “with bald tires and no oil in the crankcase,” despite stickers showing recent inspections.

But several U-Haul employees said that the inspections were being done and that they knew of no cheating. They said the company also has improved its training in how to conduct inspections and make minor repairs.

A California employee said she attended a mandatory daylong class in June, which was more training than she had received during the previous year. She added, however, that there were still “not enough employees [to inspect] all equipment prior to being rented.”

In his message to employees, Shoen alluded to The Times’ disclosure that in some cases U-Haul mechanics, under pressure to complete repairs quickly or lose their jobs, had documented repairs they did not actually perform, a practice known as “hanging paper.”

“You all know this is totally unacceptable, that this can only create problems, never solve them,” Shoen wrote. “No one can do perfect repair; however, we can all do honest repair.”

In other developments, the Montana attorney general has begun an investigation of U-Haul and has asked the company for information on maintenance and reservation policies, along with records of accidents and consumer complaints. U-Haul said it will “cooperate fully and truthfully.”

In Canada, Ontario officials, who have been highly critical of U-Haul maintenance, reported that the company has shown improvement. The Ontario Ministry of Transportation said it inspected 801 U-Haul trucks and trailers between September 2006 and mid-August and grounded 10%, mostly because of mechanical defects.

Officials said this was twice the rate of other rental companies, but a sign of progress, given that inspections the previous year led to the grounding of more than 20% of the U-Haul vehicles examined.

alan.miller@latimes.com

myron.levin@latimes.com

Reporters Diana Swartz in Los Angeles, Jenny Jarvie in Atlanta and Lynn Marshall in Seattle; researchers Janet Lundblad and Nona Yates; and photographer Al Seib in Los Angeles contributed to this report.