U-Haul Truck Rental Tips
More great tips when renting a U-Haul Truck
IN 2015, I blogged some tips on renting a U-Haul. There's some great advice on that particular experience. This year I had the pleasure of renting several trucks - so I thought I update my experience.
Six Things I Learned Renting a U-Haul
When you reserve your truck online - make sure to check the pickup location. U-Haul will change your location based on local availability. This usually won't happen if you pick a major U-Haul location - such as one that offers storage.
U-Haul offers cheap prices on boxes. We did lots of shopping around for boxes and U-Haul has the best prices for small and medium size boxes. You can always buy more than you think you need and just return the unused boxes.
The 15' truck has many mirrors so you can see the cars behind you. I have found that this can impair your vision when you look left and right to merge onto a road. When merging, it is important to be aware of what is happening around you. If you are not paying attention, because you are looking in the mirror, you may miss an opportunity to merge or worse yet cause a collision. Just pay more attention to the location of the mirrors in your viewing area.
The 15' truck has some purchase extras in the truck such as a Utility dolly and furniture moving blankets. These are extra and you have to break the seal to use them. The only downside is that these take up space in the truck. You don't lose a lot of space but its still space that could be used for something else.
When packing the truck make sure to use all the space! When we had professionals move our house, they had a dedicated truck packer that would make sure to pack boxes from floor to ceiling. Just about every space gets used. When packing up as a team, have a dedicated truck packer to make sure that you get the most out of your truck.
U-Haul locks. Something new in the recent move is that U-Haul includes a cabin lock. This is nice to lock down the truck when you sleeping at night. In prior rentals, you would have to buy your own lock. You know when your rental has a cabin lock when you see two keys on your keychain.