Please, for the sake of everyone else on the road, don't exceed the recommended speed limit. Rules that are dead serious, especially for people who don't have a lot of experience with rental trucks and towing.

I would probably keep it between 55 and 60 on the interstate and less on highways. With that much weight, it will take longer to slow down, not to mention the weight on the tires. Just think, you only need to make the trip once, so keep it safe.

We plan on renting a u-haul car hauler but will be pulling it behind a pickup truck so not quite the load as you, but what you are doing is commonly done and should be fine. Just stay safe and use common sense.

I moved 1200 miles like this but was uncomfortable driving such a huge truck myself. I had friends and family on the other end so was able to hire two unemployed yet trustworthy guys to take a bus down to me and then drive the truck back to my new location. They worked very cheaply- I only paid the two of them $600 (in '07), bus fare, plus one night in a hotel before they left with the truck. On the way back they traded off driving and went straight through.
When they got to our new town they parked it and waited for us to get there in our own cars.

This worked because I was moving with too many pets and a handicapped mother in law. What a trip :) But everything worked out in the end.

It was funny when my brother met the guys to give them a small down payment for food on the bus ride- as I had never met them I asked him what they were like. His reply was "They look like the kind of guys that would ride a Greyhound Bus for two days to get a couple days work."

Good luck with the move- it's the largest of all projects and can feel quite daunting. Just try to stay organized and soon it will all be in your rear view mirror!

Go slow, and only stop at truck stops for fuel because you won't have to back up if the gas station is too small to swing around and get positioned correctly. Same thing for hotels. You want one that has drive through capability and won't be too full so that you can just park lengthwise. Might be best to scope that out with Google Maps and a phone call or two before you start the journey. Worst comes to worst, you can unload the vehicle off of the dolley and unhook it and roll it by hand. But, you will be longer and more unwieldy than you know here. Planning the route and the stops before hand will help tremendously.

Driving around a parking lot getting used to your new turn radius will also be very helpful to you. Semi trucks take up more room when turning for a reason. You will too. And you may want to talk to your auto insurance company before you get started. Adding a small rider to your exisiting policy is likely to be cheaper than using the rental company's single use policy that they'll want to sell you. Also, you'll need to transfer your policy to your new residence and be sure that you're entirely covered while you are neither here nor there.

+1 to what GreenD said about watching where you're pulling into, and making sure you can pull out of without backing up. Drive conservatively and take your time speeding up and slowing down.

The biggest thing that sucks is those vans don't have cruise control.

We did it in 1988. We were young and invincible then ... My husband drove the truck and trailer. The kids and I followed in a van. Seattle to Maryland! In the winter !!!! Crazy times. Anyway -- you must be very careful about where you go when you stop. Turning around is hard and backing up is hot easy at all. I played offense when he wanted to change lanes. Mind you, this was before cell phones, so I had to be psychic. My husband got turned around and ended up in a cul-de-sac somehow. We had to unhitch the trailer to get out.

Don't drive any faster than you are comfortable with.dont leave your truck unattended sleep in the truck, someone is waiting to "borrow" your truck. It

Can be broken into also. Stop and sleep at wmart or truck stops. You will be on I-10 part of the way, easy traveling. Just stay in the right lane.other drivers are understanding. You have a "navigator" in the passenger seat to help and look for problems?

We have done this a few times.

Jo

Well, we did it. Drove a U-Haul from Columbus MS to Boynton Beach Florida pulling a trailer with pickup on it. 20 hrs and two breakdowns later we made it. Here is the back story. We asked for a 17' U-Haul and car transporter. They claimed they didn't have a single truck of any size in the entire city of Columbus. They called the next day and said they had a 26' trk in a town 20 miles away we could have at the 17' rate. We ended up needing it, because we filled up that 26' truck. Taking the only truck available within 50 miles was our first mistake. The truck was an old truck with well over 100,000 miles, loose steering and more rattles then you can imagine. We got 375 miles before our first problem - some kind of booster pump for the brakes went out. It turned out we could still drive the truck without the pump. About 200 more miles down the road, in the middle of the night, we shredded a tire on the trk hauler. To U-Hauls credit we got good roadside assistance with both problems, loosing a grand total of about 5 hours. The loading and drive was pretty miserable at the time; but once we got to Florida it really didn't seem all that bad and we saved several thousand dollars. Driving that huge truck and trailer really wasn't all that bad except for turning and being super careful about what gas stations we pulled into. The GPS we took was a life saver and kept us from making any wrong turns. Would we do it again - probably, but make sure we had a newer truck.

PS: One caution. A "reservation" with U-Haul means nothing. We made the reservation 3 weeks ahead of time. Four days before our trip U-Haul called to tell us they did not have a truck for us. Then they said we would have to drive 60 miles to get a truck, we ended up with the 20 miles mentioned above. But I would highly recommend if you make a reservation with U-Haul you have a backup with another company.

Glad you made it.

Moving is stressful without the problems you had.

Advise for all of us.

Newer truck, backup plan.

I've read that the U-Haul business model where most of the individual locations are franchises makes your experience fairly common. They have some trucks that they keep and maintain and only rent out for local use where you will be returning it to the same location, and there are other trucks that are rented out for long distance, one way use. These one-way truck move from place to place around the country, and the individual locations seldom know for certain what they will have available at any given time, and have zero incentive to do any maintenance on the one way trucks, since it will be rented, and be gone, and they''ll never see it again. Plus, since the corporate headquarters won't reimburse them for the maintenance they do, but will handle the roadside emergency assistance if the truck does break down, the experience you had is all too common.

To be fair though, on a long distance move from Florida to Massachusetts a couple of years ago, I believe we rented a U-Haul truck and car dolly and had no breakdowns. We did have an instance where we needed to back up, and even though my wife drives and backs up the horse trailer all the time, the truck with the vehicle dolly, with the car's front wheels on it, was essentially two trailers, and was nearly impossible to back up to turn around. Also we had a GPS with us but once it directed on a route with a nearly-too-low overpass, and frequently in the Northeast the GPS directed us to routes that were cars-only.

Our plan is drive my SUV with trailer and car while my wife follows in her SUV; NJ to Blaine WA in May (if we sell the home by then). I intend to keep it 55mph or under and drive at most 500 miles/day. I considered several car carriers however none 'really' has a door to door delivery service for our route due to lack of a return haul from that corner of the US; most vehicles end up being transported by rail and I've heard horror/damage stories using that mode.