This particular move was only three miles away and so I decided to rent a 10′ truck from Uhaul. They are currently advertising a deal where you can rent a truck for $19.95 a day, plus gasoline, plus $.69 per mile. Our entire move cost less than $100. The truck required five trips to get all of our belongings to our new location.

I would like to compare our experiences with the two companies, keeping in mind that  we used Penske for a large load over a long distance and our U-haul truck was for several short trips with small loads. Furthermore, the review is based on one rental from one location for each company.

Online: Both sites were laid out well and navigation was intuitive. Penske offered more discounts for booking online and many of the landing pages on the U-haul site had pre-selected add-ons. Things like extra blankets, boxes and hand-trucks had to be “de-selected” to keep them off of the tab. The first time I submitted my order, the total price came up as over $300 because I had left some boxes checked – for items that I didn’t need.

Advantage: Penske

Price: Since I used the trucks for two different purposes, the prices cannot be compared. However, I seem to remember that Penske was cheaper for our long trip.

Advantage: ?

Pick-up: The Penske representative was a little unsure of the procedure for checking out the truck and the process was a little long. Furthermore, the truck had not been cleaned . . . more on that later. I made the Uhaul order online and a representative from the Uhaul called me right away to confirm the details. His attitude was positive and business-like. The truck was clean and ready as promised.

Advantage: U-haul

Cab: The U-haul was spotless. The Penske truck had a dog leash, dog bowl and the cab was covered with dog hair. Furthermore, the Penske truck’s single bench seat did not adjust. The U-haul had bucket seats. . . enough said.

Advantage: U-haul

Handling: Both trucks ran well. We had no truck problems with either company. A comparison here is unfair because we rented two different sized trucks. One was for a 1,000 mile trip on the freeway and the other was for short trips at low speeds. It seemed like the Penske truck was the better highway vehicle, but I never took the U-haul on the interstate.

Advantage: Wash

Customer service: The attitude of the Penske employees was adequate, businesslike – no problems. At the U-haul location that we used, the service manager and other employees had smiles on their faces and seemed to really enjoy their work. I had occasion to call the shop three times and each time the manager patiently answered my questions and did his best to accommodate. It sounds funny to say, but after spending a few minutes in their store, I wanted to fill out an application to work there.

Advantage: U-haul

If I ever move again, I am pretty confident that I will go back to U-haul. Customer service means a lot to me.

The lack of activity here on rocket finance is due to a cross-country move and a family-wide bout with the flu. Hopefully things are back to normal and I am pretty certain that the flu bug cannot be carried by the internet. Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming:

A couple of days ago, I reviewed the hotel in which we stayed on our move. It gave new meaning to the phrase, “Don’t let the bed bugs bite!” During the move, I also rented a moving truck for the first time in my life. Here is how it went:

I reserved the truck on the internet about three weeks before our move. It so happened that our move occurred during a time period when the demand for moving trucks is low so our total price, not including gasoline, was $930 with unlimited mileage. Most people move in late spring and throughout the summer. and the increased demand can cause moving truck rentals to double in price. There are times when prices just a few days apart can vary by hundreds of dollars.

Our truck was a 22 “footer”. Several people counseled me to get a larger truck, but we gave away or threw out most of our larger furniture, so a smaller truck worked for us. Most of the rental truck websites have a calculator that estimates the size truck that will be needed. In our case the tool was very accurate. We picked our truck from the company with no problems. The paperwork took about 20 minutes to complete – a major credit card is necessary to reserve a moving van.

The fuel bill from our move was incredible, but I’ll let you do the math:

• One diesel moving truck that averaged about 8 miles to the gallon.
• One unleaded minivan that averaged about 23 miles to the gallon.
• Diesel gas prices that averaged about $4 a gallon.
• Unleaded gas prices that averaged about $3.35 a gallon.
• 1,170 miles

The truck was fun to drive – lot’s of power and as the driver, you are way up above everyone else. It was fun to pretend to be a semi driver for a week. I tell my wife all the time that we are going to be truck drivers after we retire. She doesn’t seem to be as excited about it as I am.

Here are the problems with the truck and the reason that I will never rent from this particular company again should I (heaven forbid) every have to move again. The first is that the driver’s seat was incredibly uncomfortable. I mean, you could not have designed a worse seat if you tried. My back will remember this trip for some time.

The second reason that I will never rent from this company again is the cleanliness of the cab. When I first entered the truck, I noticed a small pillow that was covered with hair under the driver’s seat. I figured it was some kind of oversight and gingerly threw it in the first trash can that I came upon. But as time went on, I realized that there was a dog dish, a dog chain and dog hair everywhere throughout the cab. By the time I noticed all of this, the back of the truck was half-loaded with our earthly belongings so I could not return the truck. There were several items that we needed to store under the seat during the trip and every one of them was covered with dog hair by the end of the trip. I am thankful that I am not allergic to pet dander or it would have been a miserable ride.

Can you guess the name of this rental truck company?

Photo by MadCowDisease.

The mid-point in our trip fell in Council Bluffs, Iowa and we used points to book lodging at a hotel of which I am a member of their rewards system. Our traveling party needed two rooms and I was able to book both of them using the rewards that we had accumulated. The check-in process was smooth and quick and they placed a plackard at the front desk with the names of the rewards members who were staying there that night. Kind of a cool touch – fed my ego a little bit.

The rooms were relatively clean and the crib and roll-a-way that we requested were right on time. I consider the hotel to be a mid-level chain – not the AmericInn, but definitely not Trump Taj Mahal – maybe two stars? The continental break fast was adequate and the coffee was very good. We had only one major problem during our stay: I was awakened at 5:30 am, not by noise, not by cold, not by a bright light, but because I was being bitten by a flea!

This is not a joke.

We do not plan to stay at the particular hotel in the future. Can you guess the chain?