After finding out that I would be moving from Michigan to Washington in the month of December, I decided it was probably best for me to not attempt to drive my brand new Honda Insight through the mountains. Because this was my first time having to do this, I was hoping to find detailed descriptions of how this process works. I wasn't finding as much as I had hoped and found this website to be the most useful. After reviewing many of the companies on this website, I chose to go with Cascade, even though I had received lower quotes from other companies. Wanting to go with a more reputable company, I informed Cascade of the lower quotes & they were able to meet me in the middle.
I was informed by Cascade that this review was only about their services and not the trucking company that they used. However, I am going to give a review for the whole experience since they book the drivers. Michelle at Cascade was able to get a driver to pick up my car a few days before I was to fly out to Washington, which greatly helped with the stress involved with moving. The driver was able to arrive exactly at the time he said, and also was able to come to where I work instead of my home to save me the hassle of driving all the way back. He did require that I make sure there was a parking lot big enough for him to load and unload vehicles at the new location. Since I was very familiar with the area, I was able to accomplish this (I'm not sure how he would have found the room where I originally wanted the car to be picked up). Cascade told me that my car would be in Washington in 5 days (estimate, of course). When I told this to the driver to confirm, he kind of laughed and said, maybe. We checked over the car & he noted some marks that could be dirt, could be scratches & then he told me that was all he needed because he had a bunch of cars to pull off before mine went on, so I went back to work while he loaded the car. About 15 minutes later, I get a phone call from him saying that now the car is loaded & the sun came out which caused him to notice a new scratch. He wanted to know if I wanted to come back & see it. Maybe this was through my own ignorance, but I said no, because the car was loaded when I wasn't there, so how would I be able to prove that that scratch wasn't there previously.
The estimated day of delivery came and went and a few days later Cascade called my brother (who was originally going to received the car) to see if the car had been delivered yet, and he said that he had not heard from the driver. Cascade then said they would contact the driver and call back. No call was received. So the next day, I called Cascade, who again said they would contact the driver. This time they did call to say that the driver's mother had died and he thought that he had already called to set up delivery (which had not happened) and I was then told that my car would arrive on Sunday, 4 days after the delivery date Cascade had provided. Because it was delayed longer than we expected, I talked to the driver to see if he could deliver the car to Seattle instead of Tacoma where we would be on Sunday. He told me that as long as we were not downtown (which we weren't) this could be done.
On Sunday, I get a call from the driver who again tells me that I need to make sure that he has a parking lot big enough for him to load and unload cars. However, this time I am not familiar with the area at all & clearly neither is he. He suggests picking me up in another person's vehicle and taking me to a mall somewhere down by the airport where he knows he has room to unload the car. Not wanting to go through all this hassle in a new city that I know nothing about, I ask if he can take it to the football stadium on the University of Washington campus. He has no idea, so my husband and I spend the next hour walking around and looking for large parking lots so we can get the car. Once we find one, we tell him that he can definitely use the stadium parking lots, but still, he doesn't know where the stadium is and needs an address. Luckily I have a Garmin with me and can pull up an address. Once the car arrives, the driver tells me I owe him $30 more than what Cascade told me I needed to have. Maybe the stress of moving had something to do with this, but when I called Cascade back, I was told that they needed to move some numbers around to pay the driver more money in order to get him to pick up the vehicle & that the $30 was taken out of my down payment. I don't remember any of this being said, but I guess it's possible. Either way, the driver was kind enough to let me run to an ATM in my car to get the additional money, and only had great things to say about Cascade. The car arrived in the same condition it left, with the exception of some dirt marks on the interior center console of the car (it has very light interior) & that mysterious scratch that appeared in the sunlight, which I don't ever remember seeing. The scratch was pretty minor as well as the dirt marks, & after all we had went through just to get the stupid thing back, none of it seemed like a big deal.
As for a recommendation, if I ever need to move a vehicle again, I will stay until my car is completely loaded & make sure that the driver is capable of finding areas large enough to load and unload vehicles in both locations without my help. I know that I moved the location both times, but it's a good thing I did because there was much less room on the residential streets at the original locations where the vehicle was scheduled to be picked up and dropped off. Hopefully, I just won't need to do this again.
