Renting would not have hauling capacity and require several all day trips and costs easily approaching 20% or more the budget of buying.

Renting what? You’re not being specific about that at all. If you don’t want to rent, que sera sera. But a 26’ box diesel rental truck will pack a whole house and pull a car dolly.

Out of everything I said that’s all you took away from it?

The rental option is far better than dumping 15K for a 20 year old Truck and then Renting a trailer to pull the household goods behind it.
If the rental Truck breaks down, it's covered. If the 20 YO used Truck breaks down on a Cross country drive, it's on him.
I think LC really needs to reconsider his cost estimate for the rental and what he can haul and tow.

I just bought a 2002 Silverado 2500HD LT Extra Cab short bed 6.0L gas with 78,000 miles on it.
One owner since new, all maintenance done by dealership, with records
For $9,000.
Took me almost a year to find a decent older truck without a ton of miles and for a decent price.

Yep...finding value takes time...took 8 months for our last buy that wasn't new.

When you're always in a rush, you're a mark.

And the breaking down en route that usrifle mentioned, is definitely why I'd rent.

There's a lot of happy 3/4-ton and 1-ton gasser truck owners out there, myself being one of them, with a 2006 F250 with a 5.4L gas V8. Fuel economy is worse, but maintenance is lighter. I've also only put about 16k miles on the thing in the last three years. With a gasser, that isn't an issue. But diesels like to be ran, and ran hard every once in a while, particularly ones with EGRs, DPFs, etc. A low-mileage used gasser from the era you specified will do the job you are asking about, and it will be considerably cheaper than a diesel.

Unlimited mileage with one way Truck rental. Now i don't think it's known where LC is Moving to, so let me just pick a Location for the cost.

I chose Dallas TX just because, and the Rental for a 26 foot truck from Puyallup WA that will tow a vehicle or Trailer is 1488.60 with no charge for miles.

https://www.pensketruckrental.com/

So 10% of a 15K Truck buying budget and no hassles with breakdowns or Maintenance.

It's a no-brainer. Rent a Truck, keep your Vehicle and tow it while transporting a whole house worth of goods. Yeah, Fuel will cost him, but it's still a better option.

I have done that exact rental with the same size Truck Towing a Car, it was worth it. Especially when i left the couch exposed in the back of the Truck and slept on it to save Motel costs.

How’s your cam phaser on that 5.4? She ticking yet?

That’s a damn good buy! Especially with the 6.0. I bought my Titan for...well...more.

It was a Canadian truck out of White Rock. 1 owner, and they wanted $19k for it. I took a Vicodin, put a wad of cash in my pocket, and walked into the dealership. Told them I’d pay $10k out the door. They laughed. I laughed. I put a $10k bundle on the saleman’s desk. They got serious pretty damn quick. After about 10 rounds of bs back and forth I walked out with the truck for $13k out the door. It had 68k miles.

Moral of the story. Bring cash. Vicodin never hurts. Smile a lot.

Ps. I ended up refinishing the salesman’s floors. After I submitted the bid he said it was too high, I told him “sorry, I don’t negotiate my prices.”

You are the Man Mike. That's a big baller right there.

The idea of renting is not lost on me. Lots of great feedback here and I don't want to stifle it.

Renting was actually my FIRST consideration.

A 26' box truck has a max weight capacity of 4 tons and towing capacity (back to renting another trailer or buying a trailer) of 3.5 tons. I have close to those maximums to move. So it would require multiple trips.

I've already downsized to the maximum I'm willing to downsize.

And when I ran the numbers a couple months ago I came away thinking that renting for about $2-3k for a week is worse investment than buying for $10k-15 and owning outright. 5x the cost, but I'd own it ... and trucks are extremely useful and I've wanted a truck for a decade.

So that might explain a bit more to the puzzle. Sometimes renting makes sense. I don't think this is one of those times. $3000 is a LOT of money to rent something for a week, when it's about 1/5th of owning something that will be useful for another decade.

Thank you for the recognition! I haven’t really talked about it much other than telling my wife how it went down and her response was “ oh, you’re soooo cool “ in that emasculating voice that only a wife can conjure. You know the one.

Are you hauling bricks? What do you have that weighs 8k lbs? I stuff my dump van full of garbage bags containing sanding dust and other construction debris and barely break 1k lbs. And it’s 9’ of cargo area packed to the roof with extremely dense material. Are you sure on the weight or guesstimating?

I know of a 1997 F-350 crew cab long bed 4x4 7.3 Powerstroke automatic XLT with 300,000 miles that the owner will let go of.

It would probably, before a long distance winter road trip, need ball joints and front axle u joints, and better tires. Has a little bit of rust and some dings n dent but presents well and would make it to all 49 driveable states right now with no hiccups.

I just helped him install a $2,000 transmission before he left for the fishing season in Alaska, and left the truck at my place.

If interested I can get pictures and a price. I don’t know exactly what it would be but the number he threw out last week made me almost buy it and I already have three diesel pickups.