For today, I’d like to take you on a journey in the move of a lifetime that turned out to be sort of a train wreck. I’ve read articles here at CC about rental cars, but I don’t recall any fun stories about rental trucks, so here you are. So grab your favorite beverage and be ready to laugh and maybe have compassion on my family! I will add I’ve told this story to several people and the same response is given every time: “Only you, Chip!”
First, the backstory. After my dad passed away, my youngest sister, Cathy, had gone through a divorce and was raising three children. We were all living in Fort Lauderdale and my mom decided to move in with Cathy, in Charlotte, to give her a hand with the children.
However, we got a phone call from Cathy in May 1999, telling us that my mom had liver cancer and only had six weeks to live. Mom requested that all of us kids come to see her at least once before she passed. My mom and I were very close and could talk about anything; I’m the youngest of five and the only boy, I loved her dearly and always tried my best to respect her. During one of our visits, she shared with me that Cathy had decided to move back to the Ohio Columbus area where we were all born and raised. A place where Cathy felt she would have some extra support with the family that was up there.
Mom was feeling guilty she would not be there to help with the kids any longer and asked if Cindy (my wife) and I would consider moving from Fort Lauderdale back to Ohio. Not a big request, huh? Cindy and I had our home, I owned a hardware store and she was in her 19 years with Publix.
But Cindy and I both decided we couldn’t turn down Mom’s request. We got Cathy moved up and situated in Ohio and then got back to Florida to sell our business and our house.
I’ve always had a deep faith in God and believe that He does work in mysterious ways. To keep it brief, the very same day we decided to sell an acquaintance came to me with an interest in buying the store, this before we even had placed an ad. Then, we had only had a few offers on our home, when the same couple agreed to buy it as well. It should be noted that they offered us the selling price we were asking on both without haggle and the store still operates to this day.
“We loaded the truck and got on the road at about 3:30 in the afternoon. My wife and my son Jacob would be driving our brand new 1999 Sierra towing a U-Haul trailer…”
Now it was time for the rental truck and I had a few choices. At that time, U-Haul was famous for running their equipment beyond a useful life, and they were in the news for their equipment failing; so that was a no-go. I checked Ryder and they were very expensive. So my next stop was Budget truck rental. I told them we would need a 24-foot truck and a car carrier trailer. They offered us a Ford with a Cummins in-line six-cylinder turbo diesel showing 89,000 miles and a car carrier that had been jackknifed either once or 15 times!
We loaded the truck and got on the road at about 3:30 in the afternoon. My wife and my son Jacob would be driving our brand new 1999 Sierra towing a U-Haul trailer with the last-minute things that didn’t fit in the rental truck, while my daughter Melissa would ride with me towing our ’97 Chevy Blazer. Cindy thought it would be good to have walkie-talkies to communicate easily between the two vehicles, which was a great idea and came in very handy.
Our trip route took us out of Davie up the turnpike across the state of Florida where we would pick up 75 North. We were driving along without too much issue and I found that the best way to describe driving that truck was like using a golf cart; push the accelerator to the floor to go forward and let off to stop. It was very simple. However, I got a call on the walkie-talkie asking why I kept slowing down and then speeding up. I couldn’t understand what Cindy meant so I watched the speedometer for a few minutes and sure enough; the truck would slow down to 55 and then slowly gain speed back up to 60 (which was top end).
We were nearing 75 North when I had to stop for diesel fuel and I decided to check the oil; nothing showed on the dipstick. I went inside to find out what kind of oil I would need and luckily there was a professional driver inside. He asked me how much showed on the stick and I told him “Nothing”. He said I would need at least 1 gallon which brought the level up to the “safe” mark.
Once we got on 75 we decided to find a hotel as we were pretty beat and it was getting late. I told Cindy that evening I just wasn’t getting a good feeling with the rental truck and I was concerned that we were going to have some mechanical issues. The next morning, I went to start the truck and it bellowed blue smoke –thick enough that it looked like I was trying to control mosquitoes!
I went back into the hotel room to call Budget and told them about the problems we were having with the vehicle and how much oil it had already gone through. Their answer was to keep receipts for all the oil and that I would be reimbursed after I returned the truck. They didn’t seem to understand that there was more to this, with the deceleration acceleration issue, and didn’t seem to care.
By this point, Cindy said that as long as the truck ran, “let’s just drive it until it won’t run”.
If you’ve ever crossed over into Georgia from Florida, you know that from that point on 75 gets a little hilly. That took a toll on the truck and it was struggling hard. It would go as low as 40 going up a grade and then run up to 65 coasting down. About that time we noticed other 24-foot trucks flying past us and Cindy went ahead and called Budget. She called their roadside emergency to explain our situation and the person on the other end asked what mile marker we were at. Cindy told them that there was a Shoney’s restaurant coming up in about 5 miles, and the lady on the phone told us to pull into that parking lot and that Budget’s mechanic would meet us there later.
We made it to the Shoney’s and I told the kids and Cindy to go in and order something to eat, while I would wait for assistance.
The mechanic showed up, a very nice and knowledgeable young man named Tod. He asked me a lot of questions and thought he knew what was wrong, but he would appreciate it if I would start the truck and push the accelerator to the floor while he looked under the hood. In a few minutes, he told me to shut down the engine and explained that three of the engine’s cylinders were not firing correctly and that the fourth one was about to drop out as well. He told me that the truck wouldn’t make it another 50 miles before that engine would completely shut down.
I asked him what the next step was and he told me that Budget would put us up in a local hotel, pay for our dinner and breakfast, and that he was working to get another truck delivered there by morning. He followed us to a hotel in Byron Georgia, and helped us get checked in. He would be calling me in the morning to let us know how soon the truck would be there.
…
I got a phone call at about 10 the next morning saying the new truck should reach us between two and three in the afternoon and that Tod and another gentleman would transfer all of our possessions from the ruined rental to the new one.
The new rental had a 429 gas engine, and before loading anything into it, Tod gave it a real run to make sure that there were no issues. That done, Tod and his partner Rich were really nice and very respectful of our possessions, and I would say it was nearly 4 pm by the time we were ready to get back to our journey.
Before we left, I told Tod that I was still puzzled by how the damaged truck had even gotten us that far. In all honesty, I felt like it was not as grave a situation as he made it sound, and made a five dollar wager with him that I didn’t believe the truck was that bad. So he handed me the keys and said: “Go over there and see if it’ll start or run for you.”
I then walked back to the truck, tried to start it and it would not run. I immediately handed him a five dollar bill.
That over, Tod was kind enough to give me his cell phone number and told me that if we had any other issues, to feel free to call him. With that, we were on our way north on 75. We got maybe 70 or so miles into our trip when I looked down the gas gauge and it showed it had burned half the tank it came with. I told Cindy there was no way we could afford to keep driving it if we were going to get such a lousy mileage.
We pulled to top it off and the tank didn’t take much fuel. Cindy said: “What do you wanna do with this?”
I called Tod and soon after, he came back to help us out. He explained to me that the gas gauge wasn’t working and that I needed to figure out how to get 3 miles to the gallon and just use the odometer to keep track.
The other issue we encountered was that the new truck suffered from the same acceleration deacceleration issue, but this time I could feel the gas pedal moving under my foot. I asked Tod what to do about that and he told me that the rentals had new electronic governors they were trying out and that he had seen problems with them. “To be honest the way to override it is when you feel it pushing up against your foot, lift your foot and then push it hard down to the floor. That will override it”. I followed those instructions and by doing it that way, I could now drive that truck to about 75 miles an hour. The gas gauge never worked right, but with Cindy having experience with a trip-o-meter on her truck, she kept tabs on the fuel tank.
After we got the truck unloaded in Ohio, I called Budget. I asked how they wanted to do the reimbursement for my oil, my hotel, my meals, and I added that I wanted 50% back for all of our issues. The gentleman from Budget told me that they would issue a credit, but that it could take weeks.
I said, “That’s fine, but then I’ll return your truck when I see the amount go back on my card”. He said: “No that’ll never do… we need our truck back”, and I said, “Yes, and I want my money back”. Sure enough, I logged into my bank account as he was punching in some numbers and I saw the credit go through.
So there you have it. I may be the only person in America who can say he’s single-handedly burned up a Cummins turbo diesel six-cylinder engine!
I hope you enjoy the attached photos of me, my wife, and my kids as a much younger family. I’ll close by saying that I want to express how much I appreciate the readers of CC. I feel it’s a privilege and an honor to be able to write these pieces and get so many nice comments from all of you.
One more thing: in the third picture is a picture of my father in law Paul kissing our son. I’ve written about him here and wanted to say that part of our visits is me reading some articles to him.
There is also a gentleman standing at the very back who is our dear friend Kevin Bozetski- someone you may recognize as he’s also written here.
Cummins NZ has their main headquarters and engine supply next door to the Volvo truck dealer mew engines are in crates there is a sea of dead engines surrounding the workshop, you definitely arent the only person who has killed one, we had a couple that spat engine parts out.
OH!! Good to know. I did talk with Tod on a few other occasions and he told me that the maintained log determined that the truck had 389,000 miles.
Although you eventually came out OK, you certainly got a terrible truck! It is hard to imagine that things would have been worse with U-Haul.
I don’t know about Budget, (and don’t know about U-Haul today) but as of 15 or 20 years ago, U-Haul’s system was explained to me. What I learned was that if a franchisee got a piece of equipment that required maintenance or repair, it was up to the franchisee to take it to a regional service center, that could be 100 or more miles away. That required a second person and vehicle for the trip (to bring the guy back who delivered the truck/trailer) and the franchisee lost the opportunity to rent the equipment. What happened too often was that the local franchise treated it like a hot potato and rented the problematic equipment, hoping to make the repair or maintenance a problem for the next guy.
I learned this after renting a big U-Haul truck to move my mother about 75 miles when she retired. It has been a long time, but I remember the truck as being quite sad. My farmer BIL drove it and was fuming that U-Haul had the stones to rent it out because of the multiple issues it had. But unlike your story, it at least made the trip (a Chevy/GMC gas V8, as I remember). It is always a relief to finish a big move, and your relief must have been better than most!
Interesting about U-Haul’s system… that explains a lot.
At the time and into the 00’s U-Haul was in the news constantly about their terrible trucks.
When we moved my sister up before we moved, we also had a U-Haul 26′ diesel 5 speed. That unit only had two minor issues: One was that while Cindy — who’d never ridden in a truck that big — and i were traveling on 77, going down a steep grade, the brake system warning light came on! She naturally was hanging on for dear life. I said “I’ll stop this truck. I may bash a fender, but I’ll get it stopped!”
After U-Haul fixed that issue, the other issue was having some fluid dripping on my feet. We never figured out what it was (I suspect brake or clutch)
Anyway there was no way, in my mind, that I could get a worse truck!
The fun of rental trucks. Really, their ability to withstand unknown magnitudes of abuse before breaking does indicate a certain degree of ruggedness in their basic construction. But that doesn’t eradicate the annoyance and grief of it all.
Your rental truck experience is far worse than mine. I never went that far, nor did I have all my belongings onboard. My involvement was as the Good Samaritan who got sucked into the abyss of ridiculousness.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/auto-biography/autobiography-how-transmissions-house-painting-post-partem-aggression-and-rental-trucks-converged/
Oh joy! You had U-Haul pains too! See the rest of my story in my reply to JP!
I remember looking to buy one of those old International JH trucks for a business. Of course, UH had gone through that one to get a top dollar value.
I certainly respect the decisions that you have made for you sister. I have not been in a similar situation, and don’t know how I would have responded.
Dave
Thank you. It wasn’t as tough as I thought because, well, how could I say no to my mom during her dying days.
Selling the store was very bone chilling as no one knew. I had not told any of my employees, friends or other family. So that was a chilling moment. Then for them to buy our home? It just screamed to us that this was what was to be.
A harrowing story told well. I once drove a rental box truck from Portland, Oregon to Seattle with my knee holding up the left side of the dashboard. Without something to prop it up, the headlights and the entire dash would go dark. Unbelievable, but not nearly as bad as your plight!
Well told story, Chip. It closely parallels one that my family had. I won’t go into the details since when it happened, I was just about the age that your son was when you had this trip-nightmare. All I know is that it involved sitting on the side of I-95 in Richmond in an epic traffic jam of our own creation, half way between our origin (Raleigh) and destination (Bethesda, MD) with a broken transmission, late summer heat, and a 200 pound over-heating dog. Thank you U-Haul.
My family moved 13 times before I left home for college. While few moves were as awful as that time in 1973 (?), they all mostly involved rental trucks and were generally awful experiences. And some people ask me why as an adult I am as interested in moving residences as I am to voluntarily seek a double amputation and a root canal at the same time….
I see people doing it all the time…a 24 foot truck pulling a car trailer. Nope. That’s a hard pass from me.
And that trailer was so badly bent to the driver’s side that I was plowing down cones running through construction areas!
Stephanie and I were moved by your decision to sell your business and uproot to take care of your sister and her kids. That’s commitment. Never mind your harrowing move itself.
I rented a truck back in 1976 to move my GF’s mom’s stuff from Iowa to San Diego, with my Dodge A100 van towed behind. That went quite well, except for the lack of a/c crossing the deserts in the middle of the summer. Also, we would swap driving while on the go; on of us would slide behind the other, who was driving, reach around them to take the wheel, and then the current driver would slide away to the passenger side. let’s just say we were both skinny and limber.
In 1993 I rented a Penske diesel truck to haul the really big stuff from Los Gatos to Eugene. The throttle linkage was incredibly stiff; within an hour, my knee was throbbing badly. No way was it going to last for another 8 hour or more. So I pulled to the shoulder by an orchard and found a stick the right length that I could wedge between the seat cushion and the pedal. Since it had a governor that topped out at like 62 or so, it didn’t make much difference and I was able to use it for almost the whole trip up I5. Primitive cruise control.
Thank you Paul. It just seemed right to us. Both my wife and I are Christians and prayed the whole thing through. The store selling without 24 hours passing and never mentioning it to anyone was really shocking. I remember going home and telling Cindy that I’d sold the store. She smiled and said “no you didn’t.” Finally when she saw that I was serious (I’m the class clown in the family) she also got chills.
Sadly, my older sister lost one of her son’s in an auto accident. DUI was suspected. So we were able to also lend her and her family support as well.
What a neat article ~ you;re a good son and spouse etc. then you had what could have been a terrible situation and handled it well .
I’ve rented a few battered U-Haul trucks & trailers, one of the trailers blew a tire in some little town in Arizona, we stopped at a McDonald’s to cool off and they sent a Mechanic with a brandy new tire, I was back on my way in a few short hours .
-Nate
About 7 years ago, I helped a friend move from Vegas to Salem, OR, and I was tasked with finding a one-way rental truck. Penske came in with the lowest price by a significant margin. All I needed was a cutaway box van, and they gave me a Chevy (or maybe it was a GMC?)
US-95 from Vegas to Reno is a mostly 2-lane road with speed limits from 70-75mph. The darn rental truck had a 65mph speed limiter, so I was a rolling roadblock for 9 hours. Also, the steering system was obviously damaged. The truck pulled so hard to the right that I thought it was a Republican. I informed Penske of this at the drop-off point, but the agent didn’t seem to care.
I think it’s obviously just luck of the draw as far as rental equipment goes. I’ve read many horror stories much worse than yours, and I applaud you for holding the truck for ransom to get your costs reimbursed. There is a hate website that people post their unpleasant Uhaul experiences, although I’m not sure its current any more.
I myself have rented Uhaul equipment for a couple Chicago to St. Louis and Milwaukee to Chicago moves, a few local moves, and more recently moved daughter and son in law from Chicago to LA. No problems, other than the site where you want to pick up the equipment is frequently NOT the site where you have to go to get it.
IMO Uhaul has the best equipment – their larger trucks have air ride suspension that is much easier on your possessions than standard trucks like Budget and Penske uses (I once rented a Penske truck and was dismayed at how harsh it rode compared to a similar sized Uhaul unit).
As a company though, Uhaul seems to be one messed up entity. As JPC mentioned the whole franchise/corporate relationship and how it affects maintenance is an issue in virtually every rental fleet. There’s a dated book about the Uhaul company history that mentions among other things family members that could not get along, lawsuits, bankruptcy, a murder, and guns in the boardroom. So I really don’t like to do business with the company, but continue to use Uhaul because I have had no negative issues so far when renting their equipment.
Yes that family has been riddled with so many issues.
It was all new to me! Another very interesting story for me any way is that of James Ryder. He was ousted from the Ryder company and started Jartran. He was going back after them with a vengeance. He called all the major truck makers looking for trucks immediately. They did not have enough cab and chassis, so he took motor home chassis! Consequently he could advertise having the nicest equipped trucks, many with power windows, tilt wheel and cruise -thing we take for granted now.
We have used U–Haul trucks ranging from a large box truck to a smaller box van. All have been very good, but the gas mileage, even on the small van was terrible. They have a meter on the dashboard with green/yellow/red and crossing over the mountains of Virginia and West Virginia was mostly in the red. I was glad to reach the flatlands of Indiana and finally Illinois. I think I made 5 fuel stops in the large truck which I think had a 50-gallon fuel tank. It was fairly easy driving them as long as you learn to use the mirrors and don’t move back to the right lane until you see the grille of the mostly trucks you are passing.
Goodness, that’s quite a story. I never had a completely stress-free truck rental experience, but nothing quite like that.
Troubles can happen even when hiring movers too. In 2000, I moved from North Carolina to Maryland, and even though I just had a 1-bedroom apartment, I hired movers… in part to avoid rental-truck hassles. But the movers’ warehouse was broken into, and a bunch of my stuff was stolen (I was reimbursed, though).
Like Paul above, I’m very moved by your commitment to your family. I’m glad you were able to help your family like this.
I started volunteering as a driver at a kids shelter. They had their own cube van that was 10 years old and only had about 25000 miles on it. I learned quickly that the staff there had hearts of gold but were totally clueless when it came to vehicle maintenance.
Some of the highlights were 10 year old original tires with sidewall cracks you could stick your pinky in, one oil change receipt in the last 5 years(did I mention it was one of the infamous Ford diesels?) and so on and so on.I got permission to fix it up which resulted a $5000 bill in short order. This got the truck back in order but panicked the director into thinking this would be a regular occurrence. I couldn’t get her to understand it was catching up years old neglected maintenance so she immediately sold the truck wnd we were to use uhauls when needed. This led to a 5 year run of uhaul rentals on a monthly or semi monthly basis.
It was always an adventure as I never seemed to get the same one twice and since this was a rural area let’s just say the trucks we being more or less dumped till they died.
I think the only thing I can say DIDN’T happen was we didn’t lose any wheels. After 5 years I managed to convince the new director we needed a second vehicle besides the shelter minivan and got approval for a pickup.
There has been a lot of staff turnover and sometimes the newer ones wonder why I tend to get ugly over mistreatment of the vehicles especially the ram pickup. The older ones just laugh and say “just go ask him about when we rented uhauls”
Only two times in my life have I had to make a long haul move. One from the Bay Area to San Diego (1973) and the other from Phoenix (2010) to the Bay Area. First, was me taking items down during third year college and moving into the families second home which was empty and new. Second, was moving my elderly father from Phoenix. I believe both were Penske well at least the last one. Both went fine and handled the Grapevine with no issues.
I’ve had both great and lousy experiences from Uhaul and Budget on rental trucks. They all made it though.
Worst was probably a Budget rental. Not the vehicle, but that in spite of a several week in advance reservation, Budget had nothing for me. In Anaheim, the greater LA area with only 10 million or so people. Nothing. But then the guy called his wife, who worked for Uhaul, she had one, a truck and car trailer and it was 20% or so cheaper. Great, but I was sweatin’ bullets for a time. So it all worked out, but what are the odds on that one?
I have been lucky with rental trucks, although I was a little optimistic sizing the truck for our one long haul move from New York to Missouri. We ended up with a motorcycle tucked up against the the rear fender of my car. Other than 3 small scratches from the brake lever it worked, but looked funny.
The one time I used Budget was for a short move and I got a newish Isuzu NPR with a hydraulic lift which was actually fun.
I never had a truck from Budget, but as soon as I saw Budget in the article, I was pretty sure a nightmare would be what the article was about. Budget is the one rental company I will never, ever, rent from. Due to Budget’s nonsensical policies, they ruined the first couple of days of my vacation, which included their taking a reservation from my mother for a Mustang for me to drive during my So Cal trip, then refusing to rent me that car because at the age of 24 and 4 months, I wasn’t equpped to handle the vast power of a 4 cylinder rental Mustang yet, but in 8 months I would be transformed and be able to rent it. On top of the rental nonsense, which National solved for me, but I had to put most of the cash I had on deposit to get that car, which had issues, the truck stop my mother wired money for me to refused to cash the money order, “Fuel or repairs?” said the woman at the counter. WTF? I ended up spending half the next day messing with getting that money order cashed. Just finding the main WU office was a huge hassle The next day, I was at Ontario Motor Speedway and had heat exhaustion. I passed out and after the paremedics checked me out, Wally Parks himself drove me out to my car and then talked to me about the drag races and the future for a half hour. I went back to the motel, crashed for about 12 hours and was ok the next day, but I had to deal with the problems the Chevy Monza I had. It had a top speed of about 50, and it turned out the distributor hold down was not even finger tight. I guessed at the correct setting of it and bought a didtributor wrench at Pep Boys and that fixed it. Sunday was fine, I drank everything I could get hold of, Lemon Ice, Pepsi, Coke, Lemonade, and I had no further heat related issues. After that trip, I wrote Budget off, and have never rented from them. Hertz was added to the “never again” list after the experience I had with them about 7 years ago, when I reserved a mid sized car and got a Focus with a jerking trans issue. Then I got some wierd intermittent check engine light. A call to Hertz got me, “Well, I can have you a Mustang in the morning!”, but it turned out to be another Focus that reeked of air freshener along with a once in a while smell of fish, like cat food fish. By the time I was done with the car, I was done with Hertz, too. Enterprise and National are my choices if possible, followed by the dealer, but those are hit and miss good or bad, too.