Pods for moving or Penske, or UHaul

[newred5]

Moved from near Buffalo NY to Port St Lucie FL.... Used a major moving company and the cost was close to what it might have cost to buy a whole bunch of new stuff especially if you factor in the amount of cash you could get for selling your stuff.... IF I could have towed a small Uhaul with my Hyundai Sonata I would have chosen that route... Take JUST what fits in a car and small Uhaul and sell the rest ....

[joe_951Turbo]

Originally Posted by newred5

Moved from near Buffalo NY to Port St Lucie FL.... Used a major moving company and the cost was close to what it might have cost to buy a whole bunch of new stuff especially if you factor in the amount of cash you could get for selling your stuff.... IF I could have towed a small Uhaul with my Hyundai Sonata I would have chosen that route... Take JUST what fits in a car and small Uhaul and sell the rest ....

+1. Take only what you need. They don't have basements here so you need to get rid of anything that you don't need. Shipping a house is expensive considering the price of diesel these days. I had a huge house and even sold a ton of extra furniture and I still needed 7 Relocubes to move the remaining stuff from PA to FL.

[kbirch]

Check out Ubox with Uhaul. It has the advantage of a pod delivered to your house and then destination and the price is much cheaper than Pods.

[alsidw]

I rented a Penske 26 foot truck and my son drove it from New Orleans to Port St Lucie. We read the advice and sold off a lot of things that was painful and I regret but glad we did it as what was left barely fit in the 26 footer. I spent as much on fuel as I did on the truck rental and that surprised me. Compared to Pods it was still cheaper. If I had to do it over again however I would do what my neighbor her in Fort Lauderdale did: she got a moving company and they came in and packed her and loaded it onto a 18 wheeler. She paid for the weight not the space used. She just used part of the truck and they took on other jobs until filled. They moved her stuff to Pensacola and it took 2 weeks and it cost just $1000.00 than I paid. Considering they did all the work it was a deal.

[starrynightz]

In the past 18 months we moved from Indiana to Tucson, then from Tucson to Knoxville,TN. We sold/donated a lot of stuff, didn't have the greatest furniture, so we got rid of it and bought used when we got to our destination. I have always gone with Uhaul in the past, but for the Tucson to TN move we went with Penske to save a few bucks. Never again. The Penske was old and very uncomfortable to drive. Comfort is a huge issue when driving that far. Also, I was assured by several people (and some internet research) that the better mileage with diesel would make up for the fact that it is more expensive. I didn't find that to be the case. Next time we move, it will be with Uhaul and we will hire some locals to pack and unpack the truck. The few hundred bucks I saved with Penske wasn't worth it at all.

[alsidw]

In New Orleans it was just the opposite. The Penske trucks we all two years or less old and had cruise control but one negative was the tailgate was higher but on the postive side the higher tail gate meant that the inside floor was flush front to back. By contrast the Uhaul trucks were old, dirty, torn seats and no cruise control. The tailgate was lower but the inside floor has humps for wheel wells and there was a large box in the front of the cargo area that was I guess was the gas tank.
As to the diesel vs gasoline, Uhaul does not offer diesel but Penske does. We drove at 70-75 mph with a 26 footer and the diesel had trouble on some rises between New Orleans and Fort Lauderdale and the cruise control had trouble maintaining speed. We did have the truck fully loaded and that could be the cause but I was disappointed thinking the diesel would have more torque to handle the loads up hill. Still even with a gas engine the Uhauls did not have cruise control and more importantly were old and worn out looking plus they did not have a smooth load floor = You pays your money and makes your choice. When you factor in motel rooms, time spent, labor to drive the truck( we followed behind in the honda van fully loaded) I do not think I would do it again. We estimated our drive time wrong and it took more time and lost our movers to unload the truck once we got to our destination and had to leave the truck overnight at the storage facility until the next day when we found other movers.