Moving Trucks

Hey Folks,
I am doing the sums on moving, it has to be done on the very cheap as I am now officially a pensioner.
I am looking at the 4.2 metre moving truck from Budget, the 6.4m truck won't get up my driveway and loading via a ramp is beyond my physical capability - I suffer two kinds of back disease.

My questions - hopefully someone has used this truck recently.
Would that size truck be big enough - I have a two bedroom unit, one bed, a three piece lounge, 42inch tv, fridge / washing machine, and probably 25 medium size boxes.
My other question, how much fuel could I expect to use on a 700k trip - I have 33 years drving experience and a HC licence so I can drive to minimise fuel consumption.
Any answers or advice would be much appreciated.
Cheers
Smidsy

By guessing . . .

Let me correct that to "A WAG".

Round trip (Converting to imperial w/o perfect factors) of 875 miles. Guessing at a generous 7 miles per US gallon . . . . .

That is 125 US gallons a or close to 425 L.

Here in the US and 30+ years of renting vehicles while on business travel, I avoided Budget like the plague. I have the impression that Budget corporate teaches franchise holders to charge renters for every scratch and ding "discovered" on the returned vehicle. Unless the renter purchases the Collision Damage Waiver at US$22 a day.

Before you blow that off, in Hawaii and mostly tourists who never rented a car before, they offer a clear plastic tape with a circle in it. The pieces are about 50mm square. The renter, if concerned about dings, is instructed to put the tape over any ding. To me, it seems that every nick, ding or scratch is "sold" to the renter multiple times. DUNNO but that is the impression that I have. And of course when returning the vehicle, time is a precious commodity due to flight schedules.

Budget is very picky about gasoline (Petrol) when returning. Their rate is about double the going rate near the airport. On Maui I rented a budget car and as I'm leaving the lot I notice the tank is not full. Within 3 or 4 miles I pull into a gas station and put almost $20 worth in. Returned the vehicle less than 24 hours and less than 40 miles after putting another $5 in. I kept both receipts. They charged almost $20 for additional fuel to fill it up. When I objected and showed the receipts the manager said "To effing bad. We have no way of knowing where that gas was used. You should have brought the vehicle back to us to fill it up." SWMBO was afraid that we would miss our flight so it went on the credit card. Since then I refuse to rent a Budget anything. Since Sears went bankrupt and previously sold off Budget, I don't know if they are still that bad. As I said, I won't rent from them.

Over here in Aus I've used budget sporadically over the years and I've never had a problem, I refuel at the closest servo (that's Aussie for gas station) and have never been questioned - most hire places in Aus charge about double the street price for refuelling.
As for the damage waiver, on the truck I'm looking at it's $40 a day (about $27US) but I always get that as a matter of course - all it takes is one a--hole in a parking lot to hit you and drive off and you're in trouble.
If this was a suburban move I could do a better deal than budget (I hate sodding automatic trucks) but the town I'm looking to move to (and where I'd be getting the truck from) is about 320 miles north of Brisbane so choices are limited.
Crazily enough, my car has a 1.6 ton (roughly 3500lbs) towing capacity but a big enclosed trailer is about double the price of a truck.

Another thing I do when hiring cars & trucks is make sure the credit card I'm using is close to its limit, that way any charges they try to stick me with cannot be levied without my consent.
Way back I used to work for the speed camera section of the Western Australian police and some hire companies were charging a $50 admin fee just to fill in the driver nomination form - company registered cars got a driver nomination rather than the actual fine, that went to the nominated driver.

I would add a similar warning to Rrich's about Europecar.

I had my pick up truck in for service/warranty/recall. The dealer gave me an Enterprise rental truck for the duration. At the rental yard, I asked if they worried about door dings. The answer was "We don't worry about anything smaller than a golf ball."

You can easily telephone the rental place to get the internal dimensions of the box, which may be something like 4.1m long x 2.1m wide x 1.9m high. From there you should be able to ascertain what you can or cannot fit inside the box.

As for fuel consumption, if the truck is an Isuzu, then there will probably be two engine sizes, the smaller truck will probably have their 3L diesel, while bigger trucks may have (most likely) their 5.2L diesels. Just ask them which engine is in the truck you are considering hiring.

The 3L would probably consume around 14 l/100 maybe higher if you push it and/or there is a fierce headwind. The 5.2L would probably be somewhere around 18 l/100 and if heavily loaded and/or pushed, you can easily consume 20 l/100 to 22 l/100.

I have both of these engines in Isuzu vehicles and consumption will vary upon conditions and driver input; Isuzu diesels are quite stingy, slow and reliable.

Mick.