Best Rental Truck Experience - U-Haul vs Budget vs Penske vs Enterprise (Phoenix: insurance, Home Depot)

[CEBMurray]

My husband and I will be relocating from Southern California to Phoenix within the next month. Although I would have preferred a stress-free move using a moving company or PODS, my husband insists he wants to save money by doing a self move using a rental truck. I have already priced the various companies for a 26 foot truck (U-Haul = $966, Budget = $762, Penske = $970 & Enterprise = $533) plus budgeted $120 gas money for the 360 mile trip from Lake Elsinore to Gilbert. That puts our potential costs roughly between $650 and $1100.

Based on your experience with the various rental truck companies, the actual experience driving their trucks and your interface with their customer service, who would you choose and why? With a difference of $450, I'm willing to fork over more money for a better experience.

Thanks in advance for your kind assistance!

[Zathras]

I think any difference in service and functionality is going to be anecdotal. I've always just gone with the best deal that worked for me for the truck and times I've needed. Pickup/dropoff locations are also a factor. That said, I've used Budget trucks both ways from LA/Phx.

[Zippyman]

I've used Penske trucks several times, most recently about a month ago & they were pretty good. I've hauled a car each time & there's been some drama about getting a trailer to the pickup location (usually solved with an additional discount & a short wait while they go fetch a trailer from another location).

Just an FYI about Penske's pricing - if you go to their website & put your phone # in the pop up & *don't* reserve a truck, you'll usually get a phone call the next day offering an even better price (done it twice)..

One more caveat with budget- even if you buy the super-premium insurance, it doesn't cover the roof of the truck - which is super-easy to damage if you're not experienced driving box trucks. Penske's insurance does cover the roof. That's why I've chosen Penske's trucks every time, even though budget was cheaper. Penske wouldn't match budgets price. U haul was just silly expensive compared & their trucks are often awful.

[Colt AZ]

Penske has been great for me for long hauls, and U-haul for shorter distances.

[JGMotorsport64]

As Zippyman mentioned about insurance, one perk to UHaul is that the trucks are usually beat to hell and therefore the damage would not be noticed.

I've done UHaul and Budget. They aren't much different, but every UHaul truck I've ever rented smelled like cigarettes and had seen better days

[hrsource]

You might try asking this on the Moving Forum too!

-HR

[ReconJohn]

Military discounts are available....PLUS Penske contracts with Home Depot...handy return!

Originally Posted by CEBMurray

My husband and I will be relocating from Southern California to Phoenix within the next month. Although I would have preferred a stress-free move using a moving company or PODS, my husband insists he wants to save money by doing a self move using a rental truck. I have already priced the various companies for a 26 foot truck (U-Haul = $966, Budget = $762, Penske = $970 & Enterprise = $533) plus budgeted $120 gas money for the 360 mile trip from Lake Elsinore to Gilbert. That puts our potential costs roughly between $650 and $1100.

Based on your experience with the various rental truck companies, the actual experience driving their trucks and your interface with their customer service, who would you choose and why? With a difference of $450, I'm willing to fork over more money for a better experience.

Thanks in advance for your kind assistance!

[teeej]

I did Penske. There was a AAA discount. IT was way cheaper than UHaul.

[MN-Born-n-Raised]

I rented from UHaul. The truck seen better days. As in, the next stop was going to be sold https://www.uhaul.com/TruckSales/ .

Anyways, we had some Thomasville 1980's traditional style bedroom furniture that was built like a tank. We turned their chest upside down above the cab. That section is called the "Mom’s Attic" which they claim is a UHaul Exclusive https://www.uhaul.com/Articles/About...aul-Advantage/ .

In our 1800 mile trip from MN, the roof leaked. The fabric pads under the chest got partially soaked and the wood absorbed water all along the edge of the furniture. Back in the early 80's, my wife worked at Daytons and we got discount after discount after discount on this set. We "stole it" and paid $2K just for the chest back in 1983 dollars. So I took pictures, and filed a claim. It should have been a no-brainer. UHaul (corporate is here in PHX) turned down the claim. I talked with them 4 times on the topic. She said that the truck showed no history of a leak and the water test at the Surprise location didn't leak either. I asked if they tried driving the truck in a windy downpour and 70 MPH. If not, then either I'm a lair OR their test wasn't valid. She told me to pound sand. I called back and said I wanted to go visit the truck to double check their work. She said it was at their dealership to be sold.

Lesson. UHaul won't pay out. That's because they self insure.

Next lesson: fraud. I bought unlimited miles and paid by the days used. But their odometer was off. for me, it didn't matter. But for others who pay by the mile, absolutely! Anyways, their speedo is off as compared to my GPS 5 MPH high @70 mph (I was really going 65). I only looked closer exclusively because my gas mileage was too good to be true (about 12 MPG on a 20' truck). The bottomline was the miles were 8% higher because the speed was intentionally off. I called to told them what I found. They said no-biggy, this is common because they used smaller tires. Well, they are making 8% more from people who rent by the mile. that is a biggy. That's called theft and I suspect it was intentional that they never bothered to deduct 8% off peoples bill. After all, this isn't the 1st truck they rented with small tires and it is easy to verify. Now maybe their was a speedo problem and not the tires. This was an analog speedo. Did they change the gears? I never bothered to compute what size off tire would create that amount of error. But smaller tires was their answer.

So the next time I rent, I absolutely will rent with UHaul. And I'm going to buy all of the insurances. Then I might doze off while driving near Lake Pleasant. Good thing I'm going to get that insurance.

[cactusland]

Penske if you have AAA or a really long distance. Uhaul if its short and need something small.