U-Haul, U-Suck

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by Dantilla

I found it much cheaper to rent the trailer locally, tow it empty one way and bring it back full than a one way rental.
One way rentals are expensive. "Local " rental is $30/ day.
$60 for two days was far less expensive than a long distance one way trip

That may be true for trailers, not for trucks. The rate for a 20' truck is $39.00/day plus 79 cents a mile. That's $800 vs $358 for one-way.

[Tobra]

You should never, ever rent anything from U haul.

[mattdavis11]

Penske is a lot better than that, both truck and price. Last I rented was about $200, unlimited mileage, two days, 26ft, one way.

[steveo12345]

Originally Posted by mattdavis11

Penske is a lot better than that, both truck and price. Last I rented was about $200, unlimited mileage, two days, 26ft, one way.

I agree. Penske is a much better outfit with much better trucks. I rented a UHaul truck a few years ago to move about 45 minutes away. The wires under the dash caught fire while I was driving it with almost all of my worldly belongings in the back of the truck. Fortunately I was able to put the fire out and continue to the new house. When I returned the truck they pretty much said yeah S***t happens.

[Jay Auskin]

If you have a good local U-Haul place, and looking for pick-up/drop-off at the same place it typically works well. One way rental and reserving through their system, for certain hit or miss.

I just moved my in-laws house from Chicago to the Detroit area over Christmas. Was looking at PODS, but they won't leave a POD on the street due to city regulations. I told them there was a small driveway, stick it in there. Didn't get a warm and fuzzy.

Decided to go with U-Pack ReloCubes. Best decision ever! Dropped off two of their "cubes", and said if I only use one, that's all I pay for. Nice drivers and dispatch people in both cities. Highly recommend for out of state moves where you don't want to drive.

[javadog]

I rented a 26' U-haul truck last summer for a one way move to another state. Seems like it cost me $250-300 total in rental fees. Had more than enough free miles to get where I was going. Had three days to do it, they gave me another 3 days for free. Had the truck almost a week. Picked it up a half mile from my starting point, dropped it off 4 miles from my ending point. Truck drove just fine, no issues.

Penske was higher.

[onewhippedpuppy]

Well at least it didn’t break down. Last time I rented one of their car trailers, one of the nearly bald tires went flat about an hour into my journey. No spare of course, so I had to wait for 2.5 hours for their roadside assistance to show up. Who then proceeded to swap out the tire on the rim on the side of the road which took another 30 minutes. That was even including me having the wheel removed and ready to change.

[Baz]

What's a wife?

[rusnak]

H-Haul is as good or bad as the franchisee running that particular location. It's about the same as renting ag or construction equipment, which is to say spotty customer service.

We went to San Francisco to buy a Macan S. My plan was to rent a car, drive to SF and if the Porsche is OK then drive the Macan home after dropping off the rental car in SF - a one way rental in other words. There was probably only one rental car place in the entire city of San Francisco that was open on a Saturday AND would let me drop off a one-way car. I had to pay something like $150 extra for that. We had to drive 20 mins in the wrong direction to go to drop off the car in packed traffic that was both terrifying and annoying, then we headed to a late dinner and some shopping. It ended up OK after I double and triple checked all of my facts and charges before picking up the car to begin the trip. I knew that if anything was going to go wrong, all of the blame shifting in the world would still mean a messed up trip. Everything went fantastic. The Macan is spectacular. The key was total pre-planning and then verifying.

The bottom line is that they are not in the retail or hospitality business. Renting vehicles comes with bad service, exorbitant charges, capricious "managers", and indifferent clerks answering the phone or running the register.

The problem started as soon as you had to rush to get the U-Haul. Don't expect them to know your needs because they don't care frankly. And they make up these cleaning charges and stuff because every 20-something or Millenial is renting these things and they don't GAF about the equipment or damage that they leave behind. It was different in our parents generation because first of all, they were better people.