Out of all the working rigs out there, few are as unloved as rental trucks. We use rental trucks during some of life’s most stressful moments. Consequently, they take a significant amount of abuse. It is human nature to put less concern into an object you don’t own. If there is a today’s version of the unloved mule spending its life pulling an underground coal train, it is the rental truck. The most abused of these trucks are the ones driven interstate, have no home base, and are only maintained when they break down. This story is about one of those unloved Curbside Classics.
I had to move a soon-to-be ex-fiancé out of a house trailer we rented outside Cortez Colorado. We mistakenly believed we could begin a life together among the magnificent scenery of the Four Corners. She enthusiastically built up a small farm with chickens, geese, ducks, dogs, cats and a horse. But it was a hardscrabble place tougher than we were. After endless months of loving, arguing, unemployment and borrowing to survive, we quit. She wanted to return home to Kansas, so we needed a rental truck.
We were financially busted, so we ended up with the most worn out, poorest maintained, GMC 7000 north of Nogales. The “dealer” was a filling station It seems the goal was to keep interstate vehicles running long enough to see them go over a horizon, hoping they’d never return. U-Haul reimbursed, but repairs cost in the short run. Instead, you made these “hot potatoes” someone else’s problem. I had no choice but to rent a truck that didn’t look like it could make it across town, let alone across country. Since I also had to move a horse, I got a cargo trailer to pull behind it.
I came into the relationship with a few university books, a car, a small collection of imported beer bottles and a bong. She, on the other hand, filled the truck. I discovered that when a guy moves in with a girl, she comes complete. Complete home furnishings, complete kitchen ware and appliances, complete household bedding, toweling and floor coverings, plus more complete collections of household items necessary and often unnecessary.
She had enough differing sizes of woman’s clothing she could have outfitted the entire cast of “Facts of Life”, including George Clooney – hey, “you take the good – you take the bad” – right? Heavy stuff I ended up lifting myself. She also demanded that everything be packed so that it wouldn’t be damaged even if the U-Haul was hit by a Tomahawk missile.
Then there were the animals. She wanted me to figure out how to take her pet chickens, ducks and geese. I volunteered to eat them, but she nixed that. Dogs – well, that’s easy. Cats – well, that’s easy too but not after the drugs leave their system. Finally, there was a horse. Dandy was his name and since we both knew what it was like to be ridden by a crazy chick, we bonded. While he was bigger than me, we both knew I wasn’t the one who was gelded, so I put him into the U-Haul cargo trailer without a whinny. I had to find large boxes for each species of yard bird and promised her that they would just think it was night and sleep through the move. Hey -she believed me!
Like most poverty stricken movers, we left under the cover of darkness and hit the road once I was able to get the GMC 7000 out of the February mud and onto Route 666 leading towards Shiprock New Mexico. I didn’t think we could make it over Pagosa Pass at night, so I headed south towards Farmington. In Farmington the next morning, I discovered the wisdom of having muffler tape and duct tape riding with me and the cats, when the previously muffler-taped exhaust pipe leading from the 7000’s 427 V8 manifold needed to be patched. While driving during the day, one of the cats decided to begin playing with a loose wire hanging under the classic Chevy/GMC dash, so I duct taped that up too. The GMC already had 128,000 miles or so on the odometer, and definitely saw better rental days years earlier in a hard life.
The biggest problem however were the tires. While moving out of the mud back in Colorado, I noted that after loading up, the total weight plus the horse trailer cause the load to slightly list. It was one of the back tires which should have been immediately replaced. By the time I discovered it, it was too late to turn back, unload the truck, explain to the landlord what we were doing, and wait for a replacement. I had to take the risk. This was another reason why I took a southern route and avoid the San Juan mountains. I had to finagle one more trip out of it. I drove slowly, carefully and hopefully.
Hope ran out ten miles out of Boise City Oklahoma when I heard a honking and noted that I had nothing but a rim keeping me on the shoulder-less road. There was nowhere to pull off. I turned on the emergency flasher lights. I saw no choice but to either risk human and animal life by becoming a road block, or risk rim life by slowly returning to Boise City. My choice:
To us stranded refugees, Boise City couldn’t have been nicer. A replacement wheel was found in Dalhart Texas and Visa raised my credit limit – and interest rate – high enough to cover all costs. The guys at the garage were curious why they heard geese, but wise enough not to investigate. We also discovered that the 427 had a head gasket leak which required adding oil to finish the trip. I galloped Dandy around the empty Cimarron County Fairgrounds, but naturally he fought me when I tried putting him back into the U-Haul cargo trailer.
The end of the move couldn’t come soon enough. Through the ordeal, I rode high over the Llano Estacado, rumbling along, listening as the east-bound gusts shoved us towards the Gypsum Hills. As the cats cried inside the old tobacco scented cab, the geese honked inside the barnyard scented truck – the GMC 7000 acted like it was just another day in its crappy U-Haul life. Through it all I spent days wondering if my life could get any lower, and the old U-Haul GMC 7000 silently presented itself as proof that it could. Both it and I knew that it’s future would soon be a junkyard – its days as an interstate rental “hot potato” over. I swore that after I dumped the load I was hauling that week to making my future brighter.
What are your rental truck blues?
I am surprised you went to Boise (Boys) City from Cortez to get to Kansas, where was your final destination? Wish I had gotten to Boise City, but I headed south from Hooker to get to Amarillo for the night. No rental truck experiences here other than some shoe prints from a previous user on the windshield of a mid-90s GMC 3500 from U-Haul. Also seen (brand new) U-Haul trucks get tagged within a day of arriving in NYC and sometimes seeing tagged U-Hauls in the countryside. I have twice visited the Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial and even though I do not remember that day the whole place is very moving indeed.
I hate to talk about death, but eventually I am going to have to deal with 3 houses and structures full of family belongings at some point within the next few decades. I figure if I can buy a 28 foot box truck with a lift gate and rent a trailer that will be the cheapest option. Plus, I can just park the truck instead of unloading it right away.
Back in 1997/98, my parents rented a U-Haul in Mesa Arizona to move to a small town in Indiana. Somewhere along the eastbound I-40 down-grade into Albuqurque, the truck puked its transmission all over the freeway. U-Haul sent a tow truck and they were brought to a local dealer. Not only did they have to take their car off of the dolly and remove the dolly, but they had to unload the dead truck and reload the “new” truck… Meanwhile the goats they had were tied to a pole in the parking lot hollering their heads off and the cats were serenading anyne who would listen.
Did not realize hauling livestock in a U-Haul was so common.
Is a “car driving license” enough in the US to drive a truck like the one in the first picture ?
No rental truck blues. Here’s how it went in my younger years: you asked a friend or an acquaintance with a truck (or worked at a company with a truck) to help you out when you had to move big things. You see, with only a car driving license you’re not allowed to drive a vehicle above 3,500 kg (7,700 lbs) GVW. After the job you gave the truck driver / owner a bottle of Jägermeister (or something else) and you could call it a day. Note that the distances here are not very long, it never took much time to haul a truck full of stuff for someone.
The late sixties and the seventies were my trucking years, so to say. We never had any breakdowns due to mechanical failures. Well-maintained high-quality trucks (with old school diesel engines) driven by loyal and experienced chauffeurs can avert misery. Overloading was a nonissue though: what had to be hauled went on the cargo bed, no matter the weight. And no matter what the law and the truck maker said.
Getting stuck in the mud at the farms with a fully loaded truck, that was the blues part….
I drove a rental truck with a 20 foot box on it. Not sure what GVW was, but about 10,000 to 12,000 I think. Did not need/have special license as far as I know. I did not rent the truck though, a sister in law did. I just drove it across the Rocky Mtns.
Is a “car driving license” enough in the US to drive a truck like the one in the first picture ?
Yes, for better or for worse. There’s an upper limit, in terms of GVW, above which air brakes and a true commercial license is required. But these quite big moving trucks are driven by regular license holders all the time. I did it several times myself, although I had previously had a commercial truck license.
Yes, two moves using trucks like those on a standard license. Led my wife to say “if they let people like YOU drive these things, I’m keeping my distance from them in the future!”
A standard “car driving license” is good up to 26,000 lbs GVWR, as long as it doesn’t have air brakes, a large liquid tank, carry more than 14 passengers, etc. There are exemptions depending on local for things like farm equipment and RVs as well.
Thanks guys. That’s a lot of weight for someone who typically only drives cars in daily life….
You even need a separate trailer driving license here when you want to tow a decent trailer with your car, a standard B driving license is for cars and BE is for cars and trailers towed by a car.
But once you have a BE driving license though you can drive bigger stuff, like a miniature tractor towing a miniature semi-trailer. Like this Renault with a double cab. (Photo: taggle.nl)
For some reason I was assuming that Europe would require a larger rear bumper on vehicles like that.
In this case the rear underride protection is on the semi-trailer, this is the tractor. If this was a straight truck than it would have had some sort of rear bumper / rear underride protection.
Yes. Some of the best advice I ever got as a young driver came from my car-mentor Howard: “If you see anything with U Haul painted on it, gef as far away from it as you can.”
Yup. I remember when I was in my mid 20s and reserved a small (I think it was supposed to be ~15′) what I assumed would be a van-cab box truck. When I went to pick it up, I was worried because it wasn’t anywhere on the lot. Went inside, they had me sign the agreement and gave me keys. “Uh, where is it? All I see are two enormous Freightliners out there.” Yeah, a reservation is for a *minimum* size and all we have are those. Enjoy your move.
I drove it a few blocks home, still empty of course, experiencing the stopping distance and massive inertial resistance to any maneuver. All I could think was “My God! Any tailgating, burger-munching, radio-fiddling moron with a credit card can rent this!”
Ever since, I stay well away from them if at all possible. I especially don’t want one directly behind me. Not much of a speeder, but I run away from big rental trucks.
Yes, I’ve long heard that U-Haul anything is the target of police safety blitzes on long weekends. Invariably they fail various safety tests, and the trailers especially leave renters stranded by the side of the road.
Since some states have safety inspections I met these folks who took 3-5 U-Hauls through a New York State safety inspection until they found one that would pass before moving to the Carolinas. Amazing that the local U-Haul place let them do that 3-5 or more times.
When moving from Long Island to Richmond Va, the rental truck’s tranny started slipping in New Jersey. I was driving by myself. I kept right on going. Not only did I not want to unload the truck by myself and put all my earthly goods in another truck; I couldn’t.
To me, the scariest part of the drive was from our new apartment in Richmond, about a mile, to the rental return place. I really didn’t think I was going to make it. Getting up the driveway ramp at the return was the hardest part.
On another trip from Long Island, this one to Tuscaloosa AL, the check engine light in the cube truck came on in Hershey PA. I still didn’t want to unload and reload, but I could have. I called them. They told me to keep going. We made it to Tuscaloosa, much to my surprise. When I returned that truck to the rental place near the University, I told them about the check engine light. I suspect they rented it again without doing a damned thing about it. The biggest problem on that trip was my son had a blowout on the chase car.
My mother rented a U Haul truck to move from Fort Wayne to Lafayette, IN. It was a big Ford (F700 maybe?) That looked to be somewhere around 15 years old. Halfway there the brakes started acting up. Happily, my BIL was driving it and he had enough experience with big old worn out farm trucks to finish the trip, though he was not a bit happy about it.
I once had a case involving a U haul truck. At that time, if a truck had a problem, the local franchisee had to get the truck to a regional service center. The process was costly in lost man-hours and lost rental revenue, so it was common to just rent it to the next guy and hopefully it would become someone else’s problem. No idea if this is still the case. I certainly hope not.
Went to rent a U-Haul in ’78. It had a hydraulic lift gate so I asked the guy to cycle it, Nothing happened, Looking under the truck I could see the oil slick from where the Lowriders had unbolted the pump and electric drive motor. Got another truck.
Long time reader, first time commenting. I stay from those as far as I can, too many bad experiences. Company used to work for kept renting them, so had no choice to take them. First one was in 2003, had a brand new 1984 gmc like tge one pictured above. Floor was like swiss cheese. Exhaust in the cab, was like driving stoned. Sevind one was a 1986 international, brake lines busted comming off expressway, barely managed to stop. Thirdone fuel started lleaking on exhaust manifolds, brought it back and calmly yold guy that his truck is on fire, well was just about.
Here in Ontario, the provincial police and MTO had a blitz on yhem specifically, 97% failed a basic mechanical inspection. When wife decided to rent one 10 years later, now holding a CDL since 2004 I inspected thoroughly. Buddy at yard was fed up, especially yhat I btought a creeper to inspect every inch of it. It was ok, but still didn’t trust it and engine started knocking when brought it back. Never again and as fas as I’m concerned, tjey should be off the road.
Great story and concur with your statements concerning their upkeep. Much easier to let the new boyfriend come and move his lady love even at the cost of losing some of your stuff. I grew up in SW Kansas and sure don’t blame you for routing around the mountains.
When I was doing swaps I drove numerous rentals if my tractor unit had broken down or simply didnt make it back from its day trip but those were well maintained late model trucks hired to commercial transport operators, but when we arrived in NZ from Tassie we already had a house full of furniture and gear from my later fathers place stored up north I rented a truck to retrieve it all I got a Toyota Dyna diesel with 20 cube body I paid for a return trip so they expected it back, Not a bad old heap to drive ineffective exhaust brakes but it already had half a million kms on it and no doubt the speedo had a haircut before it left Japan but it made the trip ok if slowly those only have a 4L 6 under the cab and a 5 speed trans(manual), I’d not driven any trucks for 20 years but it was infinitely more comfortable than the Bedfords and Commers I’d driven before.
In 1995 pregnant niece had a U-Haul seize up it’s Diesel engine on the Grapevine (I-5). They wanted her (and boyfriend) to unload truck into replacement. They said no way. Finally the truck was towed all the way to it’s destination in San Jose and she got help and unloaded it there. In 1967 half way from Portland to LA a recap that was on the front of the U-Haul flew apart and took out a bunch of wiring with it. A truck was sent out and the tire was replaced and the wiring repaired, and we finally made it to our destination. I have only rented U-Haul trailers, never had a problem with them.
My first regular hourly employer was a popular local full service supermarket chain. The diversity of tasks was amazing. The chain was adding and upgrading stores at a good clip, so there was usually a “spare” old store that was no longer in regular use. Each Christmas, the spare store would become an assembly line for making standard design and custom fruit / gift baskets.
At about 17, I was asked to drive a large rental truck to transport baskets from the assembly location to some of the stores. It was my first time behind the wheel of ANY truck, even a pick-up. Now, some might argue that my time in a ’76 LTD and a ’76 Cutlass qualified me, but it did not.
All things considered, I made out fine. My main moment of drama was getting off the Interstate and merging onto a busy main road. There really wasn’t much of a merge lane as immediately after getting on the road, there was a bridge. What passed for a shoulder was loaded with a very high, very hard snow / ice bank. Panicking in my merge, not used to the SLOOOOW truck (the merge was uphill on top of everything else), I hugged that shoulder as I was turning onto the main road. The back tandem wheels ramped up the ice bank and I could feel the truck tilting wildly. Momentum alone meant my fate was already determined, and I’d have to ride it out.
I have no idea if any wheels left the road, and for how long, but when rear right corner crashed to the bridge surface, I was the happiest 17 year old in town.
JPC’s mentor was right. Stay away from a U-Haul. The driver could be a 17 year old with a 17 month old license.
Apart from the dubious nature of U-Haul reliability is their low daily rate/high price per mile economics. Up here in Canukistan, U-Hauls only make sense for in-town moves. I forget the details now, but an independent rental place was far cheaper on a total cost basis for a 200km move, despite a higher daily rate. Their cost per km was about half of U-Haul’s.
I’ve come to the conclusion that the best deal you can get from UHaul is the trailers, because there is no milage charge. I’ve rented them twice in the last month to pick up inventory for my eBay side business. They were both fine, and the employees were actually pretty efficient and courteous.
Much better than my previous experiences a decade or so ago renting a small truck for an in-town move. I got an ancient Toyota that barely ran. I’ve noticed they seem to be turning over their fleet much faster now days.
Oh man, shortly after I ended my box truck driving career a friend wanted to move back to Lincoln and dump her loser boyfriend. Her mom rented a U-Haul and initially I was pretty excited that it was a diesel Econoline.
That is, until I drove it. I’m not sure what was wrong with it, but it definitely was on it’s way out of this world. We had a 70 mile Interstate trip each way, in Nebraska, in August. Pretty clear two things became clear:
1.) It’s top speed was just shy of 60mph, which..
2.).. it took approximately 3-4 minutes to get to
3.) It overheated mercilessly
4.) AC had long left this earth
So on the way to her apartment we agreed that despite the heat and risk of blowing up the engine, we had no choice to continue and risk blowing the motor. I kept my foot to the floor on I-80 westbound, and both of us sweated horribly in the heat of not just the Nebraska summer, but the old Ford diesel right next to our legs.
Somehow we made it there, which is the only credit I’ll give it, and loaded everything up. Of course the risk of breaking down on the way back dawned on us at that point – as did me thinking that I probably should have just offered up Fred to tow the biggest trailer we could find instead.
We made it back, on the way back not being able to get over 50mph and either the heat guage stopped working or it really did run so hot that it was all the way off the gauge.
In the end all I’ll give it is that we made it both ways, and somehow got the worst fuel mileage I’ve ever seen – burning through 40 gallons of diesel in 140 miles.
I’d say I’ve had better experiences with U-Haul since.. but.. nope.
I rented a 17′ UHaul 2009 Ford E350 recently and did not have any problems. Best truck I’ve gotten from UHaul, by far. Seems as though they’re investing in their fleet, at least in Orlando/Tampa, anyway.
Previous time using them 3 years ago wasn’t bad, either.
No, I’m not a UHaul homer – I prefer Budget first, but my recent experiences with Budget have me rethinking that strategy for when we move next year.
I rented a Budget GM-built 20 or so footer for a move from Portland to Eugene a few years back. It was a bit bigger than necessary.
It drove and handled very impressively, especially compared to a few older Ford box-trucks I had driven around Eugene at my old job. The interior was a bit ragged, and it only had 15,000 or so miles on it.
Back in my truck selling days the dealership I worked for sold ex Penske GMC box trucks with gas engines and automatic transmissions They were cheap but VERY thirsty and had an electro mechanical parking brake that was known for randomly disengaging; it was not unusual for a truck with unchocked wheels to roll across the lot with no warning.
This feature was something we pointed out gently during the delivery process, but did not stress as much as we should have. That came back to haunt me when I sold one of these ex- rentals to a customer who, the second day he owned it, parked the truck on an incline in front of a resturant and went in to get some coffee. As he waited in line he looked out the front window in time to see his truck roll backwards out of the parking lot, across a busy 5 lane road, and crash through the front window of a Dominos pizza joint on the opposite side of the road.
Fortunately nobody was hurt; cars stopped to let the wayward bright yellow truck roll across the road and the Dominos was closed. The truck was barely scratched but the Dominos was much worse for wear.
To this day I do not understand how GM sold commercial vehicles with that crazy parking brake.
On my last interstate move I rented from Budget because of experiences when helping friends move with U-Haul. Budget did one of those “no cost to me” size upgrades so that I had a truck about twice as big as I really needed. Things went pretty good for the 1st leg of my trip. But something happened after filling up in Montgomery, Alabama, because for the rest of the trip the truck drove like it had a VERY dirty tank of fuel…even after another tank of gas.
BTW, one of the biggest factors determining whether you can drive a very big truck on just a passenger car license….it’s whether your driving is in connection with interstate commerce.
AND, state and federal governments (as well as local) may no longer be as lenient on you if your rent-a-truck has OBVIOUS safety and/or mechanical “problems”. So if the rental office is extremely “casual” about the pre-trip inspection having to unload and re-load your truck could be the least of your problems.
Interesting and well written story. I used to think nothing is worse than a rental car… Now I know rental trucks are far worse.
Four months ago, we upped sticks and moved from Lewiston, Maine, back to Greenville, Indiana. I rented the 26-footer – with “the attic” (all of my amps fit up there). We also had to rent the car-hauler ( weight: approx. 10,000lb), to pull the Camaro convertible home, as well. The mate, thing2, two rambunctious dogs, and a large flat tv, followed in our Subaru Outback 5 speed. We left late in the day, and halfway across the Mass Pike, I got a “We’ve-got-a-problem” light on the dash that I still can’t identify today. Pulled off, in the pitch black, called the number, spoke to the little thing on the phone, who had to contact someone else. An hour-and-a-half went by. Never discovered what my intermittent light-on-the-dash was, all the way to Indiana. Hit some LARGE road imperfections in upstate New York, and thereafter felt a list to starboard through the seat of my pants. Things went fairly well after that, although that slight list made me a trifle paranoid to try any really showy chops (I do have my CDL). The real low point of the trip did not occur until we got to Cincinnati, where the mate got lost, just as the U-Haul and I were starting up the big hill to Ft. Mitchell. I was over in the breakdown lane, following large slow pieces of construction equipment, foot on the floor, listening, waiting for that wide-open 454 to pop like a lightbulb, when my phone rang. I managed to vector my wife up past the airport, into Kentucky, while keeping my rent-a-big-block turning. Three hours later, we arrived at our destination, and got the thing unloaded. The next morning, I plugged in a shop light and went under – I found lots of cracked leaves – but the main leaf was okay, so I took it over to the local U-Haul place, parked it, and motored away, not looking in the rearview mirror.
Just before senior year of college (summer ’01) we moved 5 people and all our stuff from an apartment on one side of campus to a house on the other side. Not wanting to make 50 small trips, and having some large furniture, we decided to do it in one shot and rented a 26′ U-Haul. The truck we got was a somewhat tired but decent-looking GMC TopKick of late 80’s or early 90’s vintage; everything seemed fine until it refused to start once we had loaded it up. After several calls and bickering with the rental place, they sent someone out to get it started so we could move it off the sidewalk of our apartment complex. Repeat this process two more times over 24 hours. Glad to be rid of that heap.
My most recent Uhaul experience was much better. 2012, moved from Durham NC to Richmond VA, another 26′ TopKick, though this one appeared to be in much better shape and of much more recent vintage (couldn’t have been more than a year or two old, less than 50K miles). And, to its credit, it performed flawlessly. Maybe they are actually upgrading across the board?