Driving a 20' U-Haul

[38Chevy454]

The 20' truck is probably too big but I didnt want to take any chances. The biggest problem packing may be securing the load when its not packed all the way to the door.

The inside walls of the truck (and maybe the floor?) will have E-track. Basically perforated steel strips that you can hook straps into. If U-haul does not supply or rent them, you can buy them at hardware store or Harbor Freight type places.

 

[brewer12345]

The inside walls of the truck (and maybe the floor?) will have E-track. Basically perforated steel strips that you can hook straps into. If U-haul does not supply or rent them, you can buy them at hardware store or Harbor Freight type places.

Yep. If you still worry about stuff sliding around, you can always fill extra space in the hold with some sacrificial cardboard boxes filled with nothing (or maybe extra cardboard). They can fill in the extra space and take any punishment dished out by your heavy stuff while adding minimal weight to the truck.

 

[Meadbh]

So Utrecht should self censor to avoid offense? This is his marriage and his life. He acknowledged that his wife is perfectly capable of doing the move, but still worries for her safety/well-being. This is offensive to you?

No, I appreciate that he values her safety. What is offensive (to me, YMMV) is the statement that "driving cross country is the man's job". The way I read it, that implies a mindset that women in general are incompetent at driving cross country. I'm sure that Utrecht didn't intentionally set out to offend women. Nevertheless, that was my perception.

 

[brewer12345]

No, I appreciate that he values her safety. What is offensive (to me, YMMV) is the statement that "driving cross country is the man's job". The way I read it, that implies a mindset that women in general are incompetent at driving cross country. I'm sure that Utrecht didn't intentionally set out to offend women. Nevertheless, that was my perception.

Having traditional gender roles in his marriage is all he seemed to be talking about, as far as I can tell.

 

[txtig]

U-Haul runs a "Moving Help" website where you can locate independent contractors that provide moving help to U-Haul customers. Mostly, this includes packing and loading help, but some of the contractors will drive a truck for you too. My son used to do this and he did a couple of cross country drives for his customers. The website lists all the pricing info and there are ratings/reviews for all of the contractors.


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[bld999]

The inside walls of the truck (and maybe the floor?) will have E-track. Basically perforated steel strips that you can hook straps into. If U-haul does not supply or rent them, you can buy them at hardware store or Harbor Freight type places.

That's it; if you pack tight like a rubiks cube , you can use the mattress and box spring as a final vertical bulkhead and put a high and low strap across, done.

Women drive all kinds of trucks all over these days. Bad drivers or crazy people of either sex shouldn't drive them, though. Once power steering came in at volume a while back, no reason upper body strength favored men drivers. Look up in the cab of a long haul rig going by on the freeway, you will see plenty of women, same thing dump trucks with pup trailers.

 

[springnr]

A to visit your local rentals to see their offices and equipment could be time well spent.
Penske is my go to lately, their customer service and equipment has been superior. Newer vehicles with more amenities and the truck actually being available as promised makes a difference.

 

[utrecht]

No, I appreciate that he values her safety. What is offensive (to me, YMMV) is the statement that "driving cross country is the man's job". The way I read it, that implies a mindset that women in general are incompetent at driving cross country. I'm sure that Utrecht didn't intentionally set out to offend women. Nevertheless, that was my perception.

I did apologize in advance for any offense to women because I knew some might be offended. I didn't mean that women are incompetent to drive cross country at all. Although we are both completely able to do just about anything, we tend to stick to traditional roles. I look at it more like being chivalrous, not demeaning. She cooks dinner. I keep the cars maintained. She cleans the inside of the house. I do the yard work and maintain the pool. We both like it this way but she can mow the yard if need be and I can wash a load of laundry when I need to.

We go on lots of road trips and she usually ends up driving more than I do because she gets car sick when shes not driving. The main difference here is she has never driven a large truck. My biggest worry is just the mere fact that driving 1300 miles alone sucks no matter who you are. Driving a large truck sucks worse. I wasnt too excited about making the drive myself but I knew we could split the driving and keep each other company. My doing it myself would suck. Her doing it herself sucks worse, in my opinion. Im sure she can do it just like I could. I'm just not crazy about her having to do it.

 

[GrayHare]

Be prepared for a fuel consumption rate that's much higher than a passenger vehicle. You might inquire about the expected MPG, and then if driving through unpopulated areas plan your refueling stops in advance.

 

[Lakewood90712]

I would also take the U-Haul fuel mileage estimate with a grain of salt, based upon my experience renting a U-haul 14' truck.

The worst aspect I see of renting and driving: boredom and fatigue of just driving all day for several days , not like a vacation, visiting things along the way.

 

[sheldon cornped]

We just moved our 3100 sq. ft. house, 4 bed 3 bath and all its contents minus what we sold, and still filled up a 26 foot UHaul truck while towing a 6 x 12 trailer behind (both the biggest UHaul rents). I am 61 1/2, wife is 57. We loaded the truck with help of our son and great next door neighbor. The drive was 200 miles part of which was thru Atlanta. I drove the truck alone and admittedly was very nervous about the whole trip and unloading when we got there. I am just now healing up after settling into the new place. We had sofas, dressers, beds, upright piano etc...The truck handled well with plenty of power, just had to be mindful of the distances and switching lanes safely and clearances as many have indicated. I figure we saved around $5-$6k in movng costs. Our next move will be Summer of 2016 out West (2,500 mi.). If my health and strength hold up, we'll probably move the same way, only with far less stuff and a smaller truck.

 

[ArkTinkerer]

No big deal at all. Drove one with a trailer down the East coast shortly after getting married. Take your time, give yourself lots of room for turns.

 

[imoldernu]

No advice, but a memory... Many moon ago, was driving a 20' loaded with appliances from state to state for selling presentations in meeting rooms and exhibition areas. A two week stint.
Backing a problem, but I turned that over to others. The part that I had trouble getting used to was the effect of headwinds, hills, and left lane driving, and the side draft effect of eighteen-wheelers passing me.
So backed up behind a slow semi, doing 60 in a 70 mph zone, the normal thing to do is to pass... Fine until coming up to the wind wall of the semi, and my truck would go no faster. Long line of cars back up behind me and we're doing an unintentional rolling block for about two miles. Same effect going downhill and passing then changing to uphill... can't pass. Not a good way to make friends with car drivers, and forces them into dangerous driving.

Patience and non aggression made it easier.
When we move stuff out of our FL home next year, will use pods... if I got the estimate right, 1300 miles... two, 7x8x5 ft pods $1800.

 

[HFWR]

Just for comparison's sake, a 1/2-T regular cab pickup is about 17'.

 

[38Chevy454]

Just for comparison's sake, a 1/2-T regular cab pickup is about 17'.

I am pretty sure the 20 ft U-haul is the length of the box on back, so total truck length is about 28-29 ft. Longer than any regular car or pickup, but nothing that excessive.

My motorhome is a bit over 44 ft, now that does take a lot more attention for length and turning radius.

 

[Buckeye]

We just moved our 3100 sq. ft. house, 4 bed 3 bath and all its contents minus what we sold, and still filled up a 26 foot UHaul truck while towing a 6 x 12 trailer behind (both the biggest UHaul rents). I am 61 1/2, wife is 57. We loaded the truck with help of our son and great next door neighbor. The drive was 200 miles part of which was thru Atlanta. I drove the truck alone and admittedly was very nervous about the whole trip and unloading when we got there. I am just now healing up after settling into the new place. We had sofas, dressers, beds, upright piano etc...The truck handled well with plenty of power, just had to be mindful of the distances and switching lanes safely and clearances as many have indicated. I figure we saved around $5-$6k in movng costs. Our next move will be Summer of 2016 out West (2,500 mi.). If my health and strength hold up, we'll probably move the same way, only with far less stuff and a smaller truck.

I'm with you on the required 'healing' period. I'm 57 and DH is soon to be 67. He's a machine! Mentally and physically exhausted but happy to have saved a bunch by doing almost all of the two moves ourselves.

 

[W2R]

I'll be moving into my "dream house" in a few weeks. This involves a 2-3 mile move, which isn't very far but it is still a move.

I admit that I may spend considerably more $$ on the move than I absolutely have to. I am thinking that at age 67 on moving day I will be considerably older than Utrecht on his moving day, IIRC? At any rate I am getting older and older each day, and there is no doubt about it. I need to be smart and give myself a break.

I have already packed nearly everything myself, and I was surprised at how hard that was to do compared with the last time I moved, 13 years ago. Weight lifter at the gym or not, I can't do a lot of things that logic tells me should be possible. I decided that I should put my pride aside and not do any of the actual moving (other than packing and unpacking, and hand moving odd shaped or fragile items in my Venza). I'll get a local moving company to do most of the moving for me. It would be cheaper to rent a truck and do it myself, but that is too hard for me now. From here on out, my main contribution to the moving process will be "put this here", "put that there". And then, unpacking, of course.

I can hardly wait!

So, utrecht, maybe that is why I suggested PODs even though I didn't know the price. I'm sorry! I wish I had a better idea, because you are recovering from surgery and it seem like you are in an extremely tough spot. It would be nice if there was an affordable way make it easier on yourself.

 

[photoguy]

Curiously, I had a different experience with this. Driving a 20+ foot truck with UHaul painted all over it clearly marked me as a amateur with a large vehicle. Although there were the usual aggressive drivers darting in front of me, there was also a strong incentive for anyone driving around me to give wide berth when I tried to maneuver. If I signaled and moved slowly, I could merge left or right in any traffic and any other driver who wasn't suicidally inattentive would quickly get out of my way.

This was my experience as well driving the biggest uhaul possible without a special license from Irvine to Los Angeles to Palo Alto. Everybody just gets out of the way.



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[rodi]

I drove a 26' Uhaul, hauling my car behind, from Atlanta to Philadelphia. I was single at the time so the option to have someone else drive wasn't there. When I reserved it, they offered a service of "helpers" to load the truck. I laughed and said - sure - sign me up for the "rent-a-dude" option. I had friends at the Philly end to help unload.

The truck was not the issue. But towing a car presents challenges if you don't have pull through parking. I was not prepared to back up a giant truck towing a car without anyone to guide me. That's not a female thing - that's an inexperience with towed things thing. (I later learned to back up my husbands boat trailer... but that was a few years later.)

I agree completely that it can be challenging when dumb drivers close the gap in front of a large vehicle... but if she's calm and takes it slow, she'll be fine.

Most motels allow you to park a big truck taking up multiple spots for pull in/pull out... if they have space.

Good luck with the move.

 

[growing_older]

The worst aspect I see of renting and driving: boredom and fatigue of just driving all day for several days , not like a vacation, visiting things along the way.

Definitely a potential problem for long drives. If you can arrange access to audiobooks, they are much more engaging and help with the boredom of long haul driving much better than flipping radio stations as you pass in and out of signal areas.

 

[Cat-tirement]

I'm struggling with this, too, as I'm planning on moving across country next year. Right now my plan is to use ABF / U-Pack and have them drop a trailer which I will have loaded, ABF will deliver and I will have it unloaded. Prices seem reasonable compared to a UHaul rental, given the added convenience.

http://www.upack.com/moving-services/moving-trailer.asp

I am also planning a cross country move next year (about 3200 miles). My first thought was to go with PODS, as we had a good experience using them with DW's parents, but they don't serve the location we're moving to. So, I have been considering a U-Haul truck, or their U-Box containers (like PODS but smaller), or this ABF/U-Pack arrangement. (ABF also has their ReloCube containers, but like PODS, they don't go to my destination.) The U-Box approach seems to be comparable in cost to the U-Haul truck after you add in the extra hotel and meal costs for several days with the truck. The U-Pack approach is more expensive, but there is some extra flexibility in loading one large trailer instead of several smaller boxes.

I'm still open to considering other options that might be out there.

 

[RunningBum]

I checked out PODS a while ago. It was something like $2500 compared to about $1000 plus $350 in gas for the U-Haul. That's a pretty big difference, plus they POD shows up several days later than driving the truck so we would be at the new house for at least 3-4 days with none of our stuff.

We have no choice about moving. We close on the sale of our house tomorrow and we leased it back for 30 days so we have to be out on July 4th. The doc said I would be healed up well before that but I'm having some complications and have no confidence right now that I will be able to sit in a truck for 20ish hrs over 3 days by then.

Plan A is to heal on time
Plan B will be for her to drive solo. I feel better about that option now. I could fly our 16 year old son back from Florida to ride with her, but no way I would want him driving at all. He just got his license about a month ago.
Plan C will be find a friend to help with the driving.

$1000 extra for a pod doesn't sound that bad, especially when plan B or C would require air fare for the extra driver. A mishap with the truck would absorb that savings quickly. 3-4 days without your stuff? Are you driving a car down? Sleeping bags, a bit of kitchen stuff, some clothes, and you'd be set enough. Just my opinion.

 

[davismills]

We both regularly drive our 36 foot motor home. You won't have a problem. I had some trouble backing up at first. I usually have a spotter and I lower the right or left hand mirror until I can see the rear tires. Back those on the edge of the driveway and I know I'm good to go.

 

[gindie]

Specifically related to the U-Haul brand itself...There was a period about 5-10 years ago where there were serious safety and maintenance concerns about U-Haul vehicles. Seems that the U-Haul corporation was owned by a large family with a lot of infighting and many aspects of the company suffered. I don't know what the current state of the company is.

I'm only presenting this as an FYI of things I remember reading (in the LA Times, I believe).

 

[Walt34]

Specifically related to the U-Haul brand itself...There was a period about 5-10 years ago where there were serious safety and maintenance concerns about U-Haul vehicles.

The last time I used one was towing a largish trailer for my sister in a move of ~200 miles. At the place she rented it from they were thorough about making sure the lights all worked, safety chain in place, instructions and all that. I didn't have any problems with the trailer.