On the Move Again, UHaul Edition

Our final Army PCS seemed to be on track.  We had prepped for movers, purging many items and wrapping, bagging and packing plenty of stuff ourselves.  We were ready for the military packers on Tuesday.

We’d also taken our vehicles in for a check up the previous week since we planned to drive them to Georgia.  My husband’s car passed with flying colors but our regular mechanic suggested a second opinion on our minivan’s sluggishness.  Thinking it wouldn’t take too long even if repairs needed to be made, we optimistically dropped the van off with the second mechanic.

Yes, this PCS was well in hand, I thought.  After 11 moves, I should’ve known better than to think such thoughts.

Three days before our pack out date, the mechanic called and told us our van needed a new transmission.  He strongly cautioned us against driving home much less driving from New York to Georgia.  Repairs would take a month! 

Our jaws hit the floor.  A month!  We were pulling out of Dodge the next week!  My husband Jonathan had a hard deadline for his new job.  So for the next 48 hours we frantically researched options. 

We’d already scheduled a military move, not a DITY.  It was too late to change that.  So would it be cheaper to leave the van in New York and then fly back up to retrieve it? Should we sell it quickly and buy a new car? Or should we rent a truck with an auto transport and take the van with us?

After crunching the numbers, my husband suddenly remembered his new job came with a relocation budget.  (He was retiring from the Army.)  We decided to take the van with us and look for a transmission shop after the move.

That’s when the real fun began!   For the last 23 years, we’ve always had the military move us.  The last time we rented a moving truck was 1999. In addition to that, we also lacked towing experience.  Zip. Zero. Nada. We had a steep learning curve ahead of us.

Reservations, anyone? 

We both hopped online hoping we’d find something on such short notice.  I researched Penske and my husband took UHaul.  The first thing we noticed was the huge price difference between the two.  UHaul was cheaper by about $3,000.  Some of that came from Penske’s towing guidelines.  Penske required a 25 foot truck to tow a minivan while UHaul only required a 20 foot truck. 

My husband definitely wanted the smaller truck (easier to drive) but we made reservations with both companies.  One of the odd things about UHaul is that they don’t tell you where you’ll pick up the equipment until 48 hours before the pick up time.  Because we didn’t have wiggle room on leaving New York at a later date, we wanted to make sure at least one company provided not only the truck, but also the auto transport.  Thus we made two reservations, one with UHaul and one with Penske.

Both companies called around the 48 hour mark.  We ended up going with UHaul, although this meant my husband ended up going to two locations, one for the truck and one for the tow, due to a change 24 hours before pick up.

We would have the truck for four days and 960 miles.  If we overshot either of those numbers, we’d pay additional fees.

Packing on the Fly

Because this whole operation was last minute, we suddenly had a 20 foot truck that we could use to take items with us as opposed to sending everything with the military movers.  While booking online with UHaul, we ordered a bunch of boxes, bubble wrap and tape that were delivered the next day.  Our “Do Not Pack” room exploded overnight with boxes, bins and house plants.

Meanwhile my husband spent some time researching how to secure a rental truck in hotel parking lots.  He found this video particularly helpful. He had enough time to order several of the devices mentioned from Amazon.

Towing Trials

So our military packers arrived and the day before our housing inspection, Jonathan left to pick up the rental truck and tow.  Thankfully a family friend took him to the first location for the truck since I was at home with the packers.  Then Jon drove the truck to the second location and an employee helped him hook the auto transport to the truck. 

We’d definitely recommend doing a quick recording with your phone as the truck and transport are being connected.  There are a lot of moving pieces.  If you can’t do a recording, UHaul also has videos online for the basics.

After getting hooked up, Jonathan successfully made it over the mountain and back to post.  The next day our DITY loading help arrived along with a friend who was experienced not only in driving trucks but also towing. 

He gave Jon tips and helped load the van on to the transport and then fasten it firmly.  Truthfully we both envisioned our minivan flying off the transport while we sped down the highway if we didn’t get this right.  Our friend gave us confidence that we wouldn’t be the headline on the nightly news.

Loading Tips

We ended up leaving the truck and transport hooked together while loading since we didn’t have large furniture to maneuver into the truck. If you’re loading more than boxes, we’d suggest disconnecting the transport and using the truck’s built-in ramps.  This is where the video recording on how to reconnect the truck and transport would come in handy.

If we’d had any delicate items, we could have placed them in “Mom’s Attic”, that weird, small space toward the front of the truck that seems to hang like a shelf. Instead, we loaded our heaviest boxes at the front of the truck near the attic just as UHaul recommends. 

We suggest securing groups of boxes to the truck walls with ratchet straps.  You can purchase these at any hardware store.  This keeps the boxes from sliding around in the truck and that obviously means less damage to your stuff.

We did discover, however, that the small UHaul boxes are too short for the ratchets.  So we sandwiched them in between the groups of strapped boxes.

If you have furniture you’ll want to wrap them in moving blankets and tape them securely to prevent any damage.

Once everything was loaded as tightly as possible, we included a dolly that was strapped in as well.  It made unloading on the other side of the move much easier.

Equipping the Cab

UHaul cabs are bare bones.  There’s no electronic console to program your directions or to listen to a podcast.  My husband tried to attach his cell phone to the windshield with a suction cup phone holder so he could use his phone’s map feature.  But the device kept popping off. 

Luckily the PX saved the day!  He bought a tablet mount that fit into the truck’s cup holder.  He was able to adjust it to fit his iPhone.

Other useful things Jon kept in the cab included the security devices for the UHaul, a flashlight, ear plugs or ear phones (it’s loud in the cab), money for tolls and a cooler with snacks and drinks.  By the way, he recommended using just one ear bud so you can still hear the traffic.

Jon also loves the app iExit!  This handy tool shows the best exits for gas, food, hotels and restrooms along the interstate highways.

Know Before You Go

Before we took off Jon checked a number of things on the truck.  He looked to see what side the gas tank was on, adjusted the mirrors and made sure he was familiar with the truck’s controls.

Our truck and towing friend gave him a few pointers too:

• It’s best to have someone help guide you as you load your vehicle on to and off the auto transport.
• Try to find pull-through parking to avoid having to back up.
• Make sure you choose pull-through gas stations that have enough room to get out once you’ve finished.  The auto side of truck stops work well.
• If you have to back up, steer in the opposite direction you want to turn.
• When towing you’ll be making VERY wide turns.  Check parking lots out before pulling in to make sure you can get out.

Things we found out the hard way:

• Check to make sure all of the roads you’ll be taking allow trucks and towing.  Many Northeastern states have restrictions on parkways.
• Take cash for tolls.  UHaul will bill you for the cashless tolls later (i.e. no toll booth to pay, just a scanner).  However, we discovered manned toll booths in New Jersey only take cash.  Since the toll is based upon the number of axels, we paid a whopping $48 in cash at one stop for the truck/transport.

One other tip about tolls:  If you have a toll pass transponder in the vehicle you’re towing, take the transponder down and wrap it in aluminum foil so you won’t be charged twice (once by UHaul and once on the transponder) as you go through the toll plaza.

On the Road

We hit the road with Jon driving the truck/transport combo while I drove his car.  We worked out a system to make changing lanes easier for him since the truck/tow combo was so long.  I would pull into the next lane and slow down to allow him to safely get over.

We also allowed extra time on the road because towing, by it very nature, requires going slower.  There are two reasons to go slower.  The tow can fishtail at higher speeds and even cause an accident.  Second, the heavier a vehicle, the longer it takes to slow down or stop if something happens in front of you. 

The extra time we alloted also helped us because we had to take a more circuitous route due to truck restrictions on some roads.  We found that most interstate highways were a safe bet while parkways were generally restricted.

Parking Overnight

Over the last couple of months we’d heard about a number of UHauls being broken into while military families peacefully slept in their hotel rooms.  As I mentioned earlier, Jon did research and ordered a few devices that, hopefully, would deter would-be thieves.

Jon placed a motion-sensitive lock on the back door of the truck.  He placed boots on the truck’s tires as well as the tranport’s tires.  He wanted to hide an Apple AirTag in the truck, but couldn’t find one locally during our last minute change of plans.

Prior to leaving New York, we also researched possible hotels, looking at everything from their parking lot situation (could we fit?) to their neighborhood (high crime area?). 

Upon arriving at the hotel, we found a brightly lit part of the lot in view of our hotel room.  We were able to park the truck/transport in front of curbs and then park our car behind the transport, effectively blocking in the UHaul.  While none of these things were full proof, we hoped the inconveniences would convince a thief to move on to an easier target.

I’m happy to report we spent two nights in hotels and nothing was stolen.  Each morning we checked the transport’s connections and then hit the road.

Wrapping It Up

We finally reached our new home after two and a half days on the road.   We quickly unloaded the truck and crashed for the night. 

The next morning we oh so carefully backed the van off the transport.  I won’t lie.  It took a couple of tries because our new street sloped down hill, and, well, we had zip, zilch, nada experience with these things. 

But we did it!  Then we hightailed it over to our local UHaul location.  Jon didn’t receive any paperwork proving he’d turned in the vehicle, so he called UHaul’s main number to confirm they had tracked the return.

About two weeks later, we received the UHaul bill for tolls.  They charged a $1 processing fee for each toll (plus the actually toll amount).  We were able to pay online, easy, peasy.

Our first partial DITY in 23 years reached a successful conclusion despite a stressful start.  We finally exhaled and took a really long nap until the rest of our HHG arrived.  The best part of the story?  Our transmission cost about $3,000 less than it would have in New York.  Mission accomplished!