In August of '93, I was driving my then-girlfriend from Maryland to California using a U-Haul 16' truck to move her worldly goods and pulling a trailer with her car on it. We got into southern Virginia when the engine quit with 1/4 tank of fuel. She called U-Haul. Three hours later, with no U-Haul rep in sight, she called again. This time, a local rep showed up, apologizing profusely for not going over the last hill before he got to us. He saw the fuel gauge and immediately stated that it was out of fuel. He added 5 gallons, and it started right up. He told us those fuel gauges were always wrong. Further down I-81, we heard a loud "BANG: and pulled over. I didn't see anything amiss, so we kept going. We crossed into Tennessee and looked for the next exit to spend the night. I headed for the exit and applied the brakes, but nobody was home. We passed that exit and took the next one with me standing on the brake pedal. There was a U-Haul dealer adjacent to the exit, and we pulled in just as he was closing. I told him he had the choice to fix the truck or offload it and reload into a different truck. We went next door for dinner. He called an hour later and said that the truck's air pump had sheared off one bolt, and the other was bent He fixed it. We were on the way the next morning. Much later, we were leaving Santa Fe, heading toward Phoenix. The U-Haul was going slower and slower on the up-hill. We resorted to driving on the shoulder. Once past Phoenix, we were reasonably OK. What a nightmare trip! U-Haul just does not maintain their rolling stock. When I turned in the truck in California, The company rep told me that he was surprised that it had made it at all; it was in such bad shape. No more U-Hauls for either of us. EVER!
