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#uhaul

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Replied to C.

@jerry

So I stood there at the side of the road, while waiting for the people at U-Haul to figure out how to rescue my beached whale and the household full of stuff it contained. Eventually a huge #wrecker turned up, the kind that is as long as a semi with a full-sized trailer, picked up the front end of the U-Haul, and hauled it into town, to my house, where we would need to unload.

My house, in a neighbourhood from the 1910s, with tiny houses, narrow lots, and narrow streets. And full props to the driver, he parallel-parked-by-proxy that U-Haul in a space directly in front of my house that was barely big enough for it.

Got it unloaded, then the wrecker came back and hauled it away.

Takeaways:

1. Real professional #drivers are amazing at what they do.

2. U-Haul #trucks and #equipment are horribly maintained, because the incentives work against the franchisees doing anything but renting them out and hoping it's a one-way rental so they never see it again. Be prepared to deal with problems. Do a *serious* walk-around #inspection for #safety issues before you even think about taking it on the highway.

3. Not illustrated in this story, but U-Haul reservations ... aren't. They might put your name on a "list" when you ask for one, but whoever shows up first gets the truck. You can walk in with a "#reservation" and they'll just say "Nope, don't have any trucks left" or give you something completely not what you "reserved".

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@jerry 's recent post about Adventures In Xmas Tree Delivery with a U-Haul truck reminded me I've never told this story here. So, my own U-Haul experience...

We were moving my partner from another city to mine, about a two-and-a-half-hour drive. Rented a U-Haul truck, whatever was the largest they had at the time. 17-foot rings a bell, but I'm not positive about that.

It was built on a Chrysler/Dodge frame, and had a 10-cylinder diesel engine. It still felt under-powered.

I was the one to drive it to Saskatoon. Loud, uncomfortable ride, but uneventful. But as I approached the outskirts of the city, something just felt a little "off". Nothing I could put my finger on. Until I reached an overpass that goes over train tracks, so a little up-and-down hump in the middle of flat prairie.

And as soon as I hit that hump, *something* went wrong with the engine. It coughed loudly, was immediately down on power and running roughly, and in the few seconds it took for me to check my mirrors and see what options I had, it started belching white smoke from the exhaust. That's coolant in the cylinders, meaning (at best) it blew a head gasket, and (at worst) put a connecting rod through the block. Probably not a big enough bang for that.

Couldn't even coast it up the rest of the hill, so it was stranded on a narrow overpass, almost touching the guardrail.

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