Renting Tow Vehicles

[DrivingDan]

Discussed elsewhere about my plans for the Silverado EV as my TV. Problem is we’re looking at buying the AS later next year but my Silverado will only be available a year from then, assuming they can ramp production quickly enough. It could be even later. So we’ll be renting TV’s in the meantime, which is fine as we’ll just be doing local trips for the first few years while I finish out work (any good campsites in California? )

Spot checking it looks like Enterprise is the only place I’ve found that rents them, pretty reasonable $400/week for a 3/4 ton. Unknown is the feature set, I have to believe they have hitches but don’t know about more advanced towing features like camera views. Anyhow I’m coming from towing in my younger days when all we had was four pins (that rarely seemed to work) and a pair of eyeballs.

It’s possible we may push it out even further, the disruption in vehicles is as big as what happened in 1900’s when ICE took over, the electric starter is what determined it for ICE over electric and steam. Now it’s Lithium for EV’s, but anyhow GM has plans for a 500-650 mile range in 2025 on their roadmap, so we might wait a bit longer. I’m expecting however that timeframe to get pushed.

Any other thoughts or ideas on TV renting?

[richard5933]

I'd weigh the cost of renting against buying a used tow vehicle. You will be able to recover a large chunk of your investment in the used TV, but you won't get a cent back from what you put into the rental.

[jeffb831]

The HD trucks Enterprise commercial rents are pretty barebones because they are "work" trucks. Also, there is usually a surcharge (~$100 IIRC) for towing - they have a pin lock through the receiver that needs to be removed by the rental agency.

United Rentals also rents HD work trucks for similar rates.

[Di3s3l_Power]

Originally Posted by DrivingDan

Discussed elsewhere about my plans for the Silverado EV as my TV. Problem is we’re looking at buying the AS later next year but my Silverado will only be available a year from then, assuming they can ramp production quickly enough. It could be even later. So we’ll be renting TV’s in the meantime, which is fine as we’ll just be doing local trips for the first few years while I finish out work (any good campsites in California? )

Spot checking it looks like Enterprise is the only place I’ve found that rents them, pretty reasonable $400/week for a 3/4 ton. Unknown is the feature set, I have to believe they have hitches but don’t know about more advanced towing features like camera views. Anyhow I’m coming from towing in my younger days when all we had was four pins (that rarely seemed to work) and a pair of eyeballs.

It’s possible we may push it out even further, the disruption in vehicles is as big as what happened in 1900’s when ICE took over, the electric starter is what determined it for ICE over electric and steam. Now it’s Lithium for EV’s, but anyhow GM has plans for a 500-650 mile range in 2025 on their roadmap, so we might wait a bit longer. I’m expecting however that timeframe to get pushed.

Any other thoughts or ideas on TV renting?

I did rent from Enterprise as my car delivery got pushed out. They have 3/4 ton pick-up trucks RAM Diesel, Ford, Chevy with 2 1/2 hitch and build-in trailer brake controller.

The Ram that I rent had the 2 1/2" to 2" hitch adapter under the back bench.
Good truck with few miles (4K miles odo) averaged 21 mpg towing my 22 FB Bambi to campsite

The issue is the $400/week only has 400 miles included miles and then they will charge per mile (40~50 cents, I don't remember exactly) so long distances will cost

[uncle_bob]

Hi

If your trailer is big enough to need a truck, it also likely is big enough to need a properly set up WD / AS hitch. You aren't going to find those on a rental truck.

Bob

[kscherzi]

Agree with Bob. A weight distribution hitch is typically set up to work with a specific tow vehicle. Usually a trial and error process. Get it set for one, then next time you rent it's a different truck that sits higher, or has different real axle springs, larger/smaller tires, etc

Agree with others your best bet is to buy a used truck that can be sold whenever your new Silverado EV arrives.

[jcl]

Several years back, we faced an expensive repair to our primary vehicle, but didn't want another ICE vehicle. It was a year to wait for the EV. We decided to purchase an interim ICE vehicle, and had a exit strategy when we bought it (a daughter with too small a vehicle for the child car seat she then needed).

We decided not to buy a tow vehicle for the interim, but the same strategy would have worked if we had purchased a used pickup. There was uncertainty over when the EV would be available, and owning an interim vehicle made the most sense. We went with a small SUV, one that she liked, in a colour that worked for her and us, and stopped worrying about delivery dates.

I would do something similar with a used pickup in your situation. I wouldn't want to be setting up a WD hitch on a rental each time, unless I knew that I could get the same rental again.

[Di3s3l_Power]

Depends on the size/ weight of the trailer, you might not need a WDH. 3/4 truck are very capable. The only reason is sway mitigation

I’m my case I towed without WDH and worked very well. In my opinion, 3/4 truck is way to much of a truck for 2023 22FB Bambi 4,300 lbs

[DrivingDan]

Probably will be getting a 27” Flying Cloud, I’d believe a 3/4 ton could handle that just fine without weight distribution or sway, let me know if you think otherwise.

Money and bother on a used vehicle would be unlikely to get me much ahead of just renting IMO (not to mention who knows what kinds of problems), we’re talking about a few years at most at a couple trips a year while I close out the day job and get the trailer smoothed out. Insurance, licensing etc in California is expensive.

OTOH my employer has a perk where I can buy a new GM vehicle at cost (they rent a lot of vehicles from GM so get this bonus for employees). So another other option is just to wait on getting the AS until I get the EV TV, or just buy a new at dealer cost ICE TV, and trade up into an EV down the road.

[kscherzi]

I typically avoid buying a first generation vehicle, for that matter first generation anything if it can be avoided. Manufacturers may do their best to find issues, but it's the purchasers of first, second, and maybe third year vehicles who become the beta testers. Better get an extended warranty.

[DrivingDan]

Yes great point, but I’d add ‘with ICE’. With EV’s its different. Average expected milage you’ll get from one with little maintenance is 500k miles (there are Teslas with 1M miles already with basically zero breakdowns). We bought a first off the line Chevy EV Bolt almost six years ago. Replaced two tires, the 12V battery (mfg defect on that one), and a side sensor which started acting funny. Oh and the traction battery which got replaced for free (8 year/100k warrantee by law on all traction batteries) because LG Chem royally screwed up their testing procedure. But nothing else - only fluid is topping off the washer occasionally.

Anyhow I’ve looked deeply into GM EV engineering, they’ve got it down pat and Ultium is the best architecture out there. Other than maybe a few small issues like we saw with the Bolt I have little doubt there’ll be problems. There’s just not a lot to go wrong that can’t be dealt with by a software patch, we’ve gotten a bunch of those

Originally Posted by kscherzi

I typically avoid buying a first generation vehicle, for that matter first generation anything if it can be avoided. Manufacturers may do their best to find issues, but it's the purchasers of first, second, and maybe third year vehicles who become the beta testers. Better get an extended warranty.

[uncle_bob]

Originally Posted by DrivingDan

Probably will be getting a 27” Flying Cloud, I’d believe a 3/4 ton could handle that just fine without weight distribution or sway, let me know if you think otherwise.

Money and bother on a used vehicle would be unlikely to get me much ahead of just renting IMO (not to mention who knows what kinds of problems), we’re talking about a few years at most at a couple trips a year while I close out the day job and get the trailer smoothed out. Insurance, licensing etc in California is expensive.

OTOH my employer has a perk where I can buy a new GM vehicle at cost (they rent a lot of vehicles from GM so get this bonus for employees). So another other option is just to wait on getting the AS until I get the EV TV, or just buy a new at dealer cost ICE TV, and trade up into an EV down the road.

Hi

A 27' ( depending on a few things ) will be up around 7,000 pounds (gross) and tongue weight could be over 1,000 pounds. It's not your truck so destroying this or that isn't as big a deal as it might be. Sway wise, as long as you stay below about 55 MPH and slow down from there heading down hill, you probably will be ok.

Another gotcha with sway is that it also will vary with the truck you get. This or that changes and you are more or less stable. It works fine this time, next time .... not so much.

Stop by here and we can pull the WD off the trailer. I can pretty quickly demonstrate sway at about 63 MPH with a F350 and nothing weird in terms of the road we are on ( = flat ground / no wind / no crazy curves). Yes, that's with a 30', but they are both in roughly the same league.

Bob

[Daquenzer]

I wouldn't tow a 27' AS trailer without sway control. Asking for problems.

[gypsydad]

Originally Posted by richard5933

I'd weigh the cost of renting against buying a used tow vehicle. You will be able to recover a large chunk of your investment in the used TV, but you won't get a cent back from what you put into the rental.

Exactly what I would do. You can get a nice used 3/4-1T truck if you look around, use it for a year or 2, and sell it when ready. (There is a "chance" you might find out by the time your EVTV is in production, that your ICE TV is working out well, your EVTV may have some "real" statistics behind early testing, and could work out very well for you.) Anyway, that's what I would consider vs renting.

[bobzdar]

You can get away with a Reese style WD hitch easily. Most stock (which is all they rent) 3/4 ton pickups (Chevy or Ford) will not have enough hitch height variation to where you'll be struggling to set up that style of hitch imo. I've had to switch TV's in a pinch due to a dead fuel pump and it took all of 5 extra minutes to figure out how much tension to put on the bars. The hitch height was pretty close to the same, but the trucks were nowhere near the same otherwise.

[DrivingDan]

So we’ve decided we’re 100% on getting an Airstream, and the Silverado EV, and we don’t want a temporary used truck. Good suggestion but don’t want to bother with it, would much prefer renting a 3/4 ton truck.

On the hitch, I’m leaning towards a ProPride. Regardless of the sway prevention what I like about it is the hitching procedure. Only trick apparently is getting the stinger in there right, then it’s just locking it down, the sway bars are already adjusted. Now with a rented tow vehicle that’s easy, with a Pro Pride already attached I just put the stinger in the hitch and hook it up. There might be some adjustment necessary, or maybe not.

For setting up the Pro Pride I’d probably just do it myself on delivery. Unless anybody can see a problem with this approach it’s what we’ll do (given the timing we’d only have time to use the rented vehicle 2 or at most 3 times before the Silverado should be available).

[JetstreamAS]

Originally Posted by DrivingDan

So we’ve decided we’re 100% on getting an Airstream, and the Silverado EV, and we don’t want a temporary used truck. Good suggestion but don’t want to bother with it, would much prefer renting a 3/4 ton truck.

On the hitch, I’m leaning towards a ProPride. Regardless of the sway prevention what I like about it is the hitching procedure. Only trick apparently is getting the stinger in there right, then it’s just locking it down, the sway bars are already adjusted. Now with a rented tow vehicle that’s easy, with a Pro Pride already attached I just put the stinger in the hitch and hook it up. There might be some adjustment necessary, or maybe not.

For setting up the Pro Pride I’d probably just do it myself on delivery. Unless anybody can see a problem with this approach it’s what we’ll do (given the timing we’d only have time to use the rented vehicle 2 or at most 3 times before the Silverado should be available).

Before you get this Silverado, you are going to rent a truck each time to tow a travel trailer and set up a PPP each time you rent?

How many times and how often do you plan on doing this on a rental truck? How many times will you rent a truck to tow a trailer before you get your new truck? Will you get your Airstream before the new truck? Are both on order now?

Having a hard time visualizing this all the way around with the decisionmaking process. Brave soul to be sure!

[NevadaGeo]

Originally Posted by Daquenzer

I wouldn't tow a 27' AS trailer without sway control. Asking for problems.

Agree.
The egg-ineers will tell you that you don't need sway control because of some equation, but they're missing the factor of a shower faucet getting bumped on and filling your gray water tank at the rear bumper to overflowing, and then your trailer will decide to go find it's own road with your truck following. If for some odd reason the rear gets much heavier than the tongue, then you need sway control. Extended boondocking without a dump station is an easy case to bring up. Or you won the lottery and converted it all into gold bars that you stored in the rear bumper cabinet.
Sway control bars are easy to put on and you can find them in a lot of places, even Fernley, NV.
Somebody ask the horse people how they tow without having issues, I'd be interested to know. Are all horse trailers designed to positively have more weight on the tongue?

[DrivingDan]

Originally Posted by JetstreamAS

How many times and how often do you plan on doing this on a rental truck? How many times will you rent a truck to tow a trailer before you get your new truck?

In the post you quoted I said it should only be a couple times max. Things can change but we’re ordering the AS a year from now approximately, with a back hatch which presently is a 4-6 month waiting time. So say the trailer is available in Spring 2024, my Silverado is presently slated for Summer 2024. So that means a rented TV for pickup, and probably one more trip in between.

My dealership specifically has a callout on their website that they have support if you need to rent a TV. Don’t know what that means but it appears to indicate they are fine with getting you set up and the act of doing this.

Things that can affect this - this time next year the recession should be in full swing which may shorten AS delivery times. And my truck may be delayed by GM. Finally we may just decide to continue to rent SOB RV to take trips and get the AS in 2024 with said truck.

Not sure I see the difficulty, but am probably missing it. I towed boats and some RV’s all over Canada with my dad, and worked on farms when young so towing is (still) second nature. It’ll be fun to be doing it again actually, been sitting at a desk too long.

Originally Posted by NevadaGeo

Agree. The egg-ineers will tell you that you don't need sway control because of some equation

I’m an engie - will they kick me out of the guild if I want sway control?

Seriously engineers start with simple experiments (usually involving duct tape and styrofoam, or in this case a with and without test) and use the equations to verify the results and intuition.

[NevadaGeo]

I know of people that make a business investing in used vehicles, holding onto them then selling at a profit. Especially trucks. Just saying. I'm told that my 2002 truck is worth more now after I've had it 12 years than what I paid for it, used, in 2010..
Get a used truck, put in your EV consumption parameters and go do your trips as a test drive, give us a report on whether your parameters got you there or if you're stranded in Gabbs, NV with out a charger. But that's not fair, Gabbs might not have a fuel station open for fuel either until Monday.