What not to bring to pick up your furniture

The day before Thanksgiving I had a customer who bought a new Bradington Young sofa we had on the floor and was going to self-transport, because she wanted it immediately and my delivery guys were not available that day. She said she would bring a truck, and I always ask "What kind of truck?" but she didn't know exactly. My parting words were "Make sure its large enough and clear of any stuff in the back".

At 2 p.m. they arrived with an old short bed Tacoma that had a cap on it and it had more of junk in the back of the bed that I like to see. The new leather sofa was not going to fit height-wise or length-wise into this truck, I can eyeball that and see that all that was going to happen was they were going to tear up a new sofa. So I said "no, you can't load that sofa into the vehicle, it's not going to work". Now I know a lot of places that would just say "Go for it" and don't care, but I can't allow this to happen in good conscience, because I know the end result that will occur. While I'm not in the habit of doing so, I said "Take my Transit 250 (it was already in that truck) and run it over to your house, then bring my truck back. That way I know it won't get damaged". They did, and while I was going to close up early I didn't mind waiting another hour for them to return.

Here's a couple of rules to remember when you want to self transport:

1) You can never bring too much truck. Do not try to cram nice furniture into too small a cargo space, you WILL damage it.
2) SUV's make terrible haulers except for the largest ones on the market like Suburbans and Expeditions.
3) Clean out the junk. That includes kids car seats if a mini-van, anything in the back if a pickup
4) Bring your straps and pads. We don't have ones to give you. String and rope make for lousy tie-downs. Nylon Cam Lock straps are what you want for tie downs
5) Bubble wrap is great for shipping small electronics, it's no good for furniture, neither are sheets or towels or thin blankets.
6) Pickup trucks are the worst haulers. If your load is not secure, items - even heavy items like recliners - will come out of the back due to air pressure at speeds over 30 mph, I've seen it dozens of times. You don't have a cargo insurance policy, either when it breaks to pieces.
7) Low height cargo areas can ruin your back when loading heavy furniture.

This is the perfect small load hauler. Easy to drive, soft and compliant suspension, low lift-over entry point into the cargo area. I love our Transit! Better to rent one of these and keep your new purchases damage free, than to try to make something work that is too small, or poorly configured. I have seen more new furniture heavily damaged by SUV hauling and in Pickups than I can count.

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When you don't know...ask! There are not many vehicles that I am not familiar with....