Thoughts on finding a "towing" rental

dpvandy01

dpvandy01

Well-Known Member
Sep 6, 2007
2,535
Cincinnati, Ohio/Ohio River and SW Florida Gulf
Boat Info
2007 38 Sundancer
&
2014 Sea Fox 256 Commander
Engines
Twin 8.1L Close Cooled V-Drives & 300 Yamaha OB
I'm looking for ideas on trying to find a rental to tow my 280DA for a trip to Tennessee this upcoming summer. I've gone the "borrow" route with almost tragic results (I almost had to replace a transmission on my buddy's F350). Does anyone have any thoughts on where to (if possible) rent a vehicle to tow my boat? I know there are transport companies but for just 7 to 9 days (235 miles each way) this might be cost prohibitive. Any thoughts?
 
I personally like to borrow stuff if possible, but I ALWAYS insist on paying them rent. This allows me to tell them that if I break it, I pay for it. If it breaks, they pay for it. A dent in the bumper means I broke it. A transmission goes out means it broke.
 
I just rented a Ford pickup ( with V-8 engine of course) from a local U-haul location. I got lucky and wound up with a truck with less than a thousand miles on it. With a company like U-haul you can rent at one location/state and return to another. They have a couple of plans, one where you pay a base rate plus mileage, and another where you get some mileage included, and pay per mile on top of that. If you local dealer doesn't have a pickup, call the regional office and they will do a search for you to locate one.

On my way to pick up the boat I was cruising along at 70mph, but once I had the boat in tow I took it out of over-drive, and stayed around 55mph. Even with a 220DA in tow the truck was feeling the strain, and it will be worse with your boat.
 
I rented a U-Haul 17' cube van and borrowed a trailer and towed my other boat a 28' Bayliner to Killarney from Barrie a 5 1/2 hour drive each way. We put 2 weeks worth of food and drinks in the back and also a 10' tender and a lot of other stuff. We had the truck 2 weeks and the cost was just over $900.00. A local hauler wants $100.00 and hour $600.00 each way, the rental was a much better way to go and we had a new truck with only 21,000 miles on it. All their cube vans have trailer hitches and are rated to tow 10,000 lbs. their pick-ups here don't have a trailer hitch or wiring for lights.

Ken
 
Danny Troy said:
I just rented a Ford pickup ( with V-8 engine of course) from a local U-haul location. I got lucky and wound up with a truck with less than a thousand miles on it. With a company like U-haul you can rent at one location/state and return to another. They have a couple of plans, one where you pay a base rate plus mileage, and another where you get some mileage included, and pay per mile on top of that. If you local dealer doesn't have a pickup, call the regional office and they will do a search for you to locate one.

On my way to pick up the boat I was cruising along at 70mph, but once I had the boat in tow I took it out of over-drive, and stayed around 55mph. Even with a 220DA in tow the truck was feeling the strain, and it will be worse with your boat.
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14 thousand pounds is far past the 1/2 ton limit.. I have an F150.. don't need to rent one. Penske said no way also!
 
Try United Rentals, in CA they have 1 ton flatbeds with hitches that are available.
 
If renting a truck is not an option and you had exsausted your "borrowing options" I guess, you can try towing folks. I've seen number of ads where towing with your or thair trailer is an option. Sure it'll cost more, but it sounds like you got only couple of option:

1. tow it
2. travel by water
3. choose different destination.

I would approach hiring towing. This should be slow season and you might get a nice deal. I was able to get about 30%+ off when transporting my 320 from FL this time in 2007.
 
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