UHaul help

December 10, 2024 9:40 PM

Family made a reservation for a U-Haul truck this Friday. U-Haul doesn't have a truck available. All is chaos.

I understand this is often a problem with rental companies, but what's the solution? ISO 26 foot truck, available for move from Oakland to Portland Fri Dec 13. Please help!

posted by Space Kitty to Home & Garden (17 answers total)

Is there not another one at a nearby facility? I've actually never run into the problem of them not having the truck on hand that was reserved. I've had U-Haul not have the size available I want to reserve, but never not had the already-reserved truck on hand when it was supposed to be.
posted by stormyteal at 10:56 PM on December 10 [2 favorites]

Just keep calling every rental company you can think of. And every branch of Uhaul near you. There is a truck somewhere and you have 3 days to find it.
posted by panhopticon at 11:04 PM on December 10 [10 favorites]

Same thing happened to me with the Oakland U-Haul. I was able to get a truck from Budget instead. Call around.
posted by agentofselection at 3:10 AM on December 11 [3 favorites]

I'm in a different state, but this is a common problem where I live. A reservation is just the suggestion that there might be a truck you can use sometime that day, somewhere in the greater metro area. It's common to show up & be told to drive to a different (far) location to pick it up or that you have to wait 3 hours until someone else returns the truck. Around here, the rental locations in the suburbs are slightly more likely to actually have what you request when you request it, compared to the one in the city.

Penske truck rentals were much more reliable for me.
posted by belladonna at 4:12 AM on December 11 [1 favorite]

When I lived in California, Penske was so much more reliable and better all around than uhaul. Sadly, I have had the opposite experience with the brands since moving to Canada.

But yeah, if you need a truck, call around now, and it probably makes sense to rent the vehicle for an extra two days, so you can pick it up today, and you know that there won't be a problem because another renter kept the vehicle for longer than they originally planned to do so. The cost of the vehicle's daily rate isn't really that much compared to mileage unless you're doing a really minimal move.
posted by nobeagle at 6:01 AM on December 11 [3 favorites]

I've had this happen with uHaul and then when they did "find" a truck after us being angry with them, it broke down on the highway. The location that rented us the replacement was then grumpy at us, I assume because they had to make up for another location's mess up. I'd suggest another brand if possible. Also, be willing to go somewhere farther away to pick up the truck and drive it back to Oakland before loading it up.

A one way rental may be harder to swing right now. If you can get a good deal on mileage, also be willing to bring the truck back to somewhere other than Portland.
posted by soelo at 6:08 AM on December 11

We had this happen to us on the day of our move. As others have said, we called around and found a company that had the same size truck available for less than U Haul wanted. It ended up really working out in our favor. In our case, Budget saved the day.
posted by shesbookish at 6:29 AM on December 11 [1 favorite]

Last time this happened to me (which is the last time I used U Haul) I ended up renting a Penske truck instead.
posted by TwoStride at 6:55 AM on December 11 [1 favorite]

when they did "find" a truck after us being angry with them, it broke down on the highway

My experience with U-Haul several time is that they think of one-way rentals as an opportunity to make the bad truck someone else’s problem.
posted by aubilenon at 8:09 AM on December 11 [7 favorites]

Thinking outside the box a little, you may want to contact ABF U-Pack and ask if they have anything available. They drop the trailer, you fill it, they drive it to the new location and drop it, you unpack it. Especially if you need a 26-foot truck; that's huge and is going to be hard to find. They have been great with last-minute stuff when I've worked with them in the past, though it's been several years since I last used them.
posted by biblioPHL at 8:38 AM on December 11 [4 favorites]

I have no help, but just for fun, here's the reason you have no truck.


Oakland to Portland 1way with a 20ft truck is $1200. Portland to Oakland 1way same truck is $600.
UHaul says California is the #50 current moving from destination (for people who use Uhaul), so trucks leaving CA are 2X the cost of those coming to California. Oakland to Phoenix 1way is $2000, so that's where most of their trucks are going, but far fewer are coming back.
posted by The_Vegetables at 10:11 AM on December 11

Does Portland have one? You could pick up there on the 12th, move and not have to pay extra for a one-way move. Good luck!
posted by kate4914 at 11:14 AM on December 11

You can rent Penske trucks via Home Depot as well. Right now they show a few 26' trucks around the East Bay available starting December 13th. I didn't go through the entire checkout process obvs. but could be worth looking into, though you may need to pick up in Alameda or San Leandro.
posted by oneirodynia at 12:38 PM on December 11 [1 favorite]

... or you could just call their rental partner, Alameda Auto Lab, directly and possibly save some time and money.
posted by oneirodynia at 12:41 PM on December 11

If this is Portland Oregon, that is a ten-hour drive. That mileage will kill you on an "in town" rate.
posted by soelo at 1:32 PM on December 11

Response by poster: Thank you everyone for talking me off the edge, truck secured for tomorrow and fingers crossed all goes well! (The answer was to increase the search radius)
posted by Space Kitty at 8:14 PM on December 12 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: It all went well ❤️
posted by Space Kitty at 8:06 PM on December 15 [3 favorites]