Need the FLATTEST road route - is there an app for that?

Greetings,
I have a friend driving a 17 foot U-Haul truck, all her possessions and her daughter to Seattle, WA.
The U-Haul truck overheats when it encounters hills. She has currently made it to S. Dakota, but
she will encounter hills in the near future. She's got a Tom Tom GPS and an Android phone.
What can she use to help choose the FLATTEST road route from this point forward?
She simply cannot be sidelined by truck mechanical problems. Is there a free/low-cost & user-friendly
Android app you can recommend? Is there a feature on her Tom Tom that considers topography??

Please help!
Thanks,
Radar

Welcome to the RTA Forum!

The Flattest Route is I-90 - which I assume is the route she's already on. It actually is the lowest elevation of any major crossing of the Rockies, north of southern Arizona. Getting off the freeway certainly will not be of any help.

However, I'd strongly recommend that they stop at a UHaul center in Sioux Falls or Rapid City and have the truck repaired or replaced. Being delayed there is going to be a whole lot easier than being delayed on the side of the road.

Flattest route from anywhere in SD is I-90 all the way. However, what she NEEDS to do is go to the nearest U-Haul dealer and either get the truck fixed or exchanged.

EDIT: Looks like Michael types faster than me!

I will share I-90 recommendations. Swapping trucks is an idea, but she has no help unloading/loading truck. She is not well. Will U-Haul do that for her???
From SD to Seattle - which states/routes do you recommend?

THANKS!

U-Haul may provide some help swapping trucks, but that's going to depend upon if they have any extra help available. If that's not an option, then she really should wait until her current truck is fixed. If she's not well, sitting along the side of the road waiting for repairs or a tow (and then waiting again for it to be fixed) isn't going to make things any better.

Again, I-90 is the only recommend route and it goes all the way to Seattle, via Wyoming, Montana, and the tip of Idaho.

I'd recommend that you have her call U-Haul, tell them where she is, and what problem she is having - let them advise her. Customer service is 1-800-789-3638 and emergency road service is 1-800-528-0355.

Actually, unless the truck is currently experiencing a major breakdown that makes it impossible or unsafe to drive, I think you'd be better of just driving to a UHaul center. Dealing with someone face to face is going to be much better than dealing with phone customer service and the mobile technicians who could be many miles away.

Just make sure you go to a corporate owned location, not a local dealership that likely would not have a mechanic or other staff on site. The centers are pretty easily identifiable as being only UHaul locations, as opposed to dealers which rent UHaul gear in addition to their primary business. As I mentioned earlier, there are UHaul centers in Sioux Falls and Rapid City.

Thanks folks. I have shared your suggestions.

I was thinking the phone customer service rep could advise her where would be the best place to take it depending on her exact location. The rep could also give whatever place he/she recommends a heads up that she is coming in.

I gave her the # for the Sioux Falls U-Haul location because that is closest to where she is. Hopefully she will check it out in person or by phone. Thanks for the help!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by glc

I was thinking the phone customer service rep could advise her where would be the best place to take it depending on her exact location. The rep could also give whatever place he/she recommends a heads up that she is coming in.

---

Bluntly, you're giving the Uhaul's CSR reps way more credit than they deserve. What's more likely is that they will hear "mechanical problem" and immediately redirect them to the roadside service team, which essentially is an entirely different part of the company than the Sales/Retail locations. Its actually a case where showing up at a location and "playing dumb" by asking for help, rather than actually calling for help is going to more often than not result in better service.