Penske Truck Rental Review

The golden-yellow glow of Penske Trucks has been roaming across America for almost 50 years, but don’t let that fool you—Penske has one of the newest fleets of vehicles in the business. This means that with Penske, you’re more likely to have a smooth move. (Who wants to break down on the way to your new home?)

Penske isn’t the most affordable or feature-rich truck rental company, so it’s worth checking out other options—U-Haul and Budget—if Penske doesn’t strike your fancy. But overall, it offers a wide range of truck sizes to choose from.

How Penske Truck Rental works

Penske’s definitely got the moving truck game down by offering four different sizes of rental options, local moves, long-distance moves, and multiple discounts.

Penske is not a full-service mover (it rents trucks and vans only), but it does pair with a number of companies to help you with your full-service move, if that’s what you’re looking for.

Penske can improve your DIY move

Here are the companies Penske Truck Rental pairs with for full-service moving:

1. uShip for moving watercraft, motorcycles, or other things that don’t fit in a truck
2. Supply Side for boxes and supplies
3. Updater for organizing and task lists for getting your new home ready (utilities, changing mailing address, etc.)
4. Simple Moving Labor for all the heavy lifting
5. SpareFoot for storage (self-storage or full-service storage)

What you get with Penske Truck Rental

Penske provides four options when it comes to the size of your truck rental (and one cargo van option too). For the most part, pricing isn’t drastically different between its truck sizes, so it’s not a big deal if you need to upgrade to a larger vehicle.

Penske vehicle rental options:

• Cargo van
• 12-foot truck
• 16-foot truck
• 22-foot truck
• 26-foot truck

While Penske may be more expensive than Budget, you have more options in truck sizes to make sure you’re getting everything in okay. Plus, you can always see what discounts you qualify for with Penske.

Penske offers the following discounts:

• Discount codes (when available)
• AAA discounts—save 12%
• Military Discount—save 10%
• College students—save 10%

Penske’s also pretty comprehensive when it comes to the truck rental experience, and it’s available in 380 locations across North America, South America, Asia, and Europe.

You won’t get the low E-Z ramp loading like you would with U-Haul, and you won’t get the toll passes you can get with Enterprise, but just about everything else you need is there.

Penske protection options

You can save some cash by skipping extra insurance, but if you need to ease your mind a bit, a little insurance can be worth the money. Penske has plenty of options to make sure you cover your assets if things get too real on the road.

• Limited Damage Waiver—Covers basic damage to the truck
• Personal Accident Insurance—Covers medical expenses if you get in an accident
• Supplemental liability insurance—Covers claims made by third parties for bodily and property damage (up to $1,000,000!)
• Cargo insurance—Covers your possessions up to $15,000 ($100 deductible per occurrence)
• Towing insurance—Covers collision damage for towed vehicles

Penske Truck Rental moving experience

Getting a truck is simple enough: Find a location nearby, sign up online or at the store, and hit the road. You’ll want to take note of things like mileage and gas so you can estimate your price better.

If you have some friends who can do the heavy lifting with you, this is one of the easiest and cheapest ways to move.

Getting your quote

Penske’s all caught up to the rest of the world; it’s easy to book online, where you can select your truck size, pick-up and drop-off locations, and see transparent pricing (at least on local moves). Many moving companies don’t give you the option to reserve online, so this is a huge plus.

There is a $100 security deposit required for one-way reservations. Local reservations will have a security deposit calculated at the time of pick up.

Planning your timeline

In one of the quotes we tested, adding additional days made the price increase $100 per day. That gets expensive really quick, so if you need to take your time to sort out your move, you may want to look into a moving container company like PODS. Or check out a storage company nearby, your rent might be less than $100 for a month.

Packing your truck

When it comes to loading up your stuff, we recommend saving up all the free boxes and packing materials you can find ahead of time, but if you can’t, Penske can hook you up with a local supplier. The company does offer moving dollies and furniture pads online and in-store, though.

Moving

The biggest thing to watch out for when you rent a moving truck is the added height. Make sure you’re clear before driving into a parking garage, a ferry, or a stall with an awning.

It’s worth pointing out that Penske has unlimited mileage as an option on all one-way rentals, but be aware that the price is significantly higher.

Recap — Is Penske Truck Rental a good mover?

We like Penske for its newer vehicles and a wide selection of sizes. It may cost more than Budget, and lack a few features that U-Haul and Enterprise have, but it’s still one of the most reliable rental truck companies out there.

Services: Plenty of trucks to choose from at a reasonable price.

Quotes: Penske may require a phone call quote for certain moves, but we were able to book ours online, which we love. Keeps it simple.

Moving: Grabbing a truck online for a quick local move is one of our favorite inexpensive ways to go—even if you just need to grab a free couch you scored on Facebook.

Storage: If you need storage, Penske can link you up with the right people in the right areas. But we definitely don’t recommend packing a parked Penske truck as storage weeks at a time.

Penske’s options will work great for most people, so get a quote and get your move on. It may be your Pens-key to success.