Uship?

[billymac814]

Anyone here have any experience using Uship? I'd like to buy a press that is in Kansas and need to get it to PA which is about 1200 miles, it weighs a bit under 400 lbs.

I could go get it but I'd have 3 days out of the shop and probably 600 bucks at least in fuel.

I've read a bunch of bad reviews but a lot of them were from truckers who don't like the idea of it and its always more likely that someone with a bad experience will post reviews while people who had positive and uneventful experiences may not be as inclined.

Any one have any other suggestions if Uship isn't the way to go. Its not crated or anything but the guy will put it on a pallet if need be but I have to arrange it. Its about the footprint of a pallet or probably slightly smaller.

[billymac814]

It doesn't seem like anyone has used Uship so Ill post my findings in case anyone else uses them.

I received a couple bids on the press, one was about 570.00 and two were both at 441.00. In sure there are cheaper freight options out there however the guy did not want to handle shipping it or crating it up or anything like that. All in all I don't think the price is that bad considering they'd have to go to his place and pick it up as it is and then deliver it 1200 miles to me. The one thing that I noticed though is that it seems a lot of shippers cancel last minute for one reason or another which concerned me a little bit. The bids are not binding or anything. You have 24 hours after the auction closes to accept any of the bids(you do not have to take the lowest) or you can accept any of them at any time if you don't want to wait for it to end. I would use them if I needed to but I would make sure I check the feedback of the shipper pretty closely. There seems to be a lot of brokers that bid on shipments and then hire someone else to do them which then you'd have no way of checking out who is shipping your stuff.

In the end I found a similar press and another machine I wanted about 500 miles away so I just went up (to Boston, the day of the marathon/explosions) and got them.