How crazy am I? Moving edition

Ive got plans to move 2,500 miles away and after crunching numbers for moving trucks ect it seems my best bet is to use our 1988 volvo 245 and a 12ft enclosed uhaul trailer. With a stock car I wouldnt hesitate but this one isnt exactly stock but the addition of a turbo and stronger trans from another volvo it could be better suited to tow than a stocker (I feel) but also make it possibly less trustworthy? The previous plan was rent a 10ft uhaul box truck and dolly to haul the volvo anyways, were liquidating our other cars but that will end up costing over $1000 more, maybe $1500 more after fuel.

So what says the hive? Am I crazy, stupid, or genius?

Have you actually looked on the u hall web site to see if they will rent that trailer for that car?

I'd buy a big used comfy diesel truck and have it drag all my stuff. Then sell it for profit or loss at my next location. Trying to save money on a cross country move is hard. There's no cheap way to do it. Only slightly cheaper options.

Dean has a good point - because I'm bored, I discovered that they will rent the 6 x 12 to you, but if your hitch is a 2000lb your payload will be 0 . That's a lot of weight and frontal area to drag around, plus you're likely to have the car loaded up as well.
I'd vote for the truck + trailer option - if you blow the car up, you'll be hosed for more than the extra rental fees. As a worst case, I'm picturing something exciting like this, but without BMWs in the video: Ruh roh!

In reply to dean1484:

Yep uhaul says its gravy.

In reply to yepididit:

im not looking for the easy way out and still have to haul a trailer of junk and a volvo and dont really want to have a train going... that said a used non intercooled psd is still going to cost me 3k which is 1k more than a uhaul. I have thought about driving something good from my location (central mississippi) to my final destination of portland or but not sure whats valuable up there. Afaik its not too rusty up there?

The amount of crap were hauling is a coffee table, clothes for two, a queen size bed, small dresser, a chiffarobe, two tvs, an about 150lbs of tools. Not a whole lot a junk, we are two broke college "kids" after all.

Xlr99 you make a good point I need to look into the towing capacity of both 245 and the 740ti the running gear came from. The move is next july so I got some time to drum up some plans..the only nessecities are our junk and this volvo so either way it needs a dolly or trailer, preferably not both.

Edit, seems the volvo is capable of 3000-4000 lbs, thr 12ft trailer is 1900lbs unloaded and I dont have 1000lbs of crap, considering the trailer has brakes I should be fine..im prepared to take it slow but I will be crossing the rockies and cascades...reliability is more of a concern than towing over the 55mph "top speed" of the uhaul. But I have been WELL versed in volvo repair and a professional at roadside repairs. I guess I won't know until I try

Price out a Budget truck rental.

Remember if your Uhaul trailer fails or whatever, and they bring another out YOU will be unloading and reloading all the stuff. And Uhauls stuff is horrible in general.

Budget has much nicer stuff in my experience and better maintained.

I've moved 6 times in 8 years, two of which were 600mi.. Screw all the DIY moving places. I'll gladly pay someone else to do the lifting and moving of stuff. Use a reputable company directly, get everything in writing, don't go through a broker.

Will it make it through the mountains

In reply to flatlander937:

I just checked budget, $1100 sans gas and tow dolly ($250ish from uhaul) still a grand over the volvo and uhaul trailer plan

Get a large Ryder or Thrifty truck (truck frames, not the low floor van types like UHaul). Put Volvo and everything else you own inside.

Ride in style.

In reply to yupididit:

Haha the only "mountain" this car has ever seen was mostly unloaded and only only 590ft above sea level. I have faith in the power levels though, dyno 250ft lbs torque granted I dont want to run full boost the entire way through the rockies.

Svrex thats a novel idea ill look more into it.

That said I an envious of all the guys cross country trips in beaters, ala rt 66 maverick. So im in for an adventure and the world wouldnt end for a small breakdown but id prefer not to do something rash id regret later. Hell lots of people did the Oregon trail with a much E36 M3tier horse and wagon, I can do it in a wagon too right???

Nearly 30 year old car with an after market turbo towing an overloaded trailer over the Rockie Mountains.

What could go wrong?

In reply to chiodos:

Power is not your problem.

Cooling is, followed by torque.

How sorted is your turbo install? Have you driven it 10,000 miles without issue?

There used to be a decent SCCA discount with Budget.

Quick google shows tons of large discounts for many reasons too:

https://www.budgettruck.com/deals

If you have the cash, what about buying an enclosed trailer and selling it when you get there? May even come out even/ahead.

Factory volvo 15g turbo, rebuilt 10k miles ago, factory oil cooler, big trans cooler, big intercooler, new thicker radiator..and its probably done 7k thus far but no odometer...and yes she will get plenty more test miles before now and next july

In reply to flatlander937:

Good idea on enclosed trailer, ill look into that...renting one from uhaul is already $500 might as well front some more to possibly break even.

Next July??

A lot can change between now and then.

Yes and no, plans arent set in stone but lets call it quickcrete that's setting quickly. As I said before weve got two other cars neither of which im bringing (miata and 2dr accord) so dumping them will free up a bit of money but were still doing a shoestring budget as we still need to buy at least one car once we get to Oregon. Between now and then is a mad thrash to catch up maintenance items on the old volvo, log more miles (3,000 more) and lots of prayers and sacrifices to Odin.

I moved from VA to CA and the govt paid for milage, fuel, lodging, food, per diem, and to top it off they shipped my household E36 M3 which includes 3 transmissions and 2 engines (1uzfe and 4g54b). And minus the household goods shipment it probably cost them about $4,000. Lodging varies state by state, so does fuel and food. It helped the car we drove got about 500 miles to the tank and we took a slight detour to the grand canyon.

That's not all of it though.

Once we got here that's when the entitlements stopped. So, we had to find a house and live in lodging all while still needing food and fuel to look at places to live. Once we found a place we had to pay for first months rent, deposit (= rent), cut on all the utilities (expensive as E36 M3), buy groceries for the new house, (unexpected buys: California houses use gas dryers, ours was electric), car insurance on the west coast (including pnw) is way higher than the east coast (my insurance monthly premium tripled for southern California and was told if I had moved to Phoenix it would've quadrupled). Since you're not military you'll have to become a state resident of the state you moved to within a certain amount of time. Which means new license for all the drivers and reregistering your cars in that state (first time out of state registration is usually expensive).

Factor in the cost of living from where you're moving from vs your final destination. How easy is it to find a job, housing, become a resident, and lodging.

When it comes to us military moving across the country we can sometimes make money off of moves but moving to the west coast from the south east will almost always cause you to pay out of pocket because of cola and how many hoops those states require you to jump through. That's why we tell all the inbounds to factor in about $6,000 of initial moving cost for this location. Civilians who don't have such benefits I would tell them $15,000 or more. Especially more if they don't already have a job lined up as soon as they arrive.

Ideally you can budget move anywhere. But, it's much like an apparently affordable $3,000 LSX swap. Yeah you can buy the engine and trans for x amount. But, you'll be nickle and dimed beyond those initial buy in prices and how much of it is someone else doing for you?

Project the cost of this move for a worse case scenario the multiply it by 2.5 + a months living expense for every month you think you might not have a job.

Not saying you haven't thought of this. Just throwing it out there.

TLDR: You need monies to move a family and things across the country.

SVreX wrote: Nearly 30 year old car with an after market turbo towing an overloaded trailer over the Rockie Mountains. What could go wrong?

Sounds like a E36 M3 idea, especially with everything you own and your family attached to the car. The rockies aren't forgiving to an underpowered, overloaded, old car driven by an inexperienced rocky driving grm'er. Please document this lol. If you make it, it'll be one of the greatest grm tales to tell

It would be a great adventure yes, but do you really want to have an adventure with all of your personal belongs in tow?

Personally I wouldn't.

The reason I mentioned surface area and drag is that this will place major loads on the car above and beyond the weight. The Town&Country we used to own had a specified limit of 42sq ft frontal area or something.

You're going to be running with alot of boost all the time even down near sea level. As you climb thru the rockies the turbo will be doing even more boost, combined with less dense air for cooling. You're not going to be able to test for that in the southeast.

If you grenade the engine or trans, you're stuck with limited options, and any repairs are going to be expensive while you're on the road.
If a rental truck blows up, they fix it for you, and you have your backup transportation on the trailer behind you while you wait.

If you have limited stuff, maybe consider renting a standard van and trailer rather than a box to save some $$. Looking at uhaul, the van is .59/mi vs the boxes which are .79, plus less fuel usage.

Since you don't have much stuff you could also think about building two pallet size crates and shipping them LTL. You would have to have lift gate pickup on both ends and a couple buddies but it's an idea. I used to do this when shipping job boxes for installations on the coasts, I'd fly my guys in and they rent a truck go to the hub and pick up the crate.

JtspellS wrote: It would be a great adventure yes, but do you really want to have an adventure with all of your personal belongs in tow? Personally I wouldn't.

Important life events with a family in tow (unless I understand wrong and they are coming some other way) are not IMO a time to be "adventuring". The trip will be adventure enough even without the... poor plan of using the volvo.

Honestly, the simple answer is to sell the volvo. I am confused as to why using a uhaul truck with a trailer ends up costing an extra $1500, it really shouldn't I don't think. Especially with how cheap your fuel is in the US.

But at the end of the day, you are literally making the biggest move IN THE WORLD without crossing a body of water. Its going to cost money, and if you want to do it cheap, some sacrifices need to be made. It appears to me that you are looking at it as "it will cost $1500 more to move with a uhaul truck".

What is really going on is that your volvo just had an unexpected expense of $1500, luckily for you, that expense hasn't lowered the value of it and as such you can sell it for a good market price. Additionally, by not taking the volvo and therefore having to rent a trailer, your gas mileage and rental cost will be WAY lower (not as low as if you towed a trailer behind the volvo, but still a lot cheaper than if you go the full meal deal).

Its a volvo. I'm not saying its not special, but it is replaceable, and you are moving to the land of cheap rust free cars. Additionally, doesn't cali have KARAZY smog testing? Would your car even pass?

I'm a bid advocate of towing with cars but even this sounds like a bad idea to me. Those are big trailers, I've rented them 3 times now. I vote sell your stuff on craigslist and buy it again when you get there. The stuff you actually want to keep goes in the Volvo or in a small utility trailer that can be water proofed by tarps or boxes. DEFI