Pickups Are Great, But You’re Probably Better Off Renting a Trailer

If you’re considering buying a pickup truck instead of a smaller vehicle because you think you might haul dirt, chunky cargo, or random pieces of large junk once in a while, hold off for a second. Do you realize how cheaply you can rent a utility trailer? That might be a far better option for you.

Last weekend I had to haul a Polaris UTV from mid-state Vermont to New York’s Hudson Valley. The cost to rent a big two-axle utility trailer was $40 and change for 24 hours. That’s including taxes, fees, and add-on insurance. Yes, I pulled it with a pickup, but I didn’t have to. More importantly, the experience opened my eyes to how easy it is to grab a little trailer for the kind of occasional hauling most homeowners and hobbyists do. A paltry $40? You can barely get out of a Harbor Freight without spending that much on a single trip!

I had considered buying a trailer for this mission since the UTV was coming to live with me indefinitely and I might need to move it again. But the closest decent candidate was around $500. Plus, then I’d need to meet up with some Craigslist dude, deal with the DMV to get tags, maintain it, store it—it’d be a whole thing.

When I found out that U-Haul could hook me up with a 6×12 two-axle trailer for a full day for less than the price of a fuel stop, the rental was a no-brainer move.

The experience got me thinking about how many pickup trucks are driving around with always-empty cargo beds because the owners convinced themselves they might need to haul something someday. A smaller trailer would work for so many general homeowner hauls and be even cheaper than the one I rented, not to mention lighter. Plus, you’d have the benefit of how low a trailer is to the ground. Anything heavy is a pain to get into a truck bed, but a little town trailer is less than two feet high.

Look, I know some trucks do make practical sense for some people. Honestly, I can even appreciate the appeal of owning a truck just for the vibe. It’s fun to cruise around in a pickup, and modern ones are ridiculously nice. But modern trucks are also ridiculously expensive, guzzle gas, and still can’t match car-based vehicles on driving dynamics. You can do all the shock tuning and sound-deadening you want, but (aside from a few extreme performance models) no body-on-frame 4×4 is as agile and comfortable as a well-engineered car or crossover.

Speaking of crossovers, many of them can still tow more than 3,000 pounds these days. But even a base-model RAV4 can pull 1,500 pounds, which would be plenty for a single-axle utility trailer and half a ton of mulch or bricks, or a huge appliance. And something that size would be even cheaper than the one I rented for my UTV run.

The hauling weight of my U-Haul setup ended up being pretty substantial, and yes, I see the irony in saying “you don’t need a pickup truck” when I pulled my trailer with a Tacoma. U-Haul’s largest utility trailer (this two-axle job) weighs 2,200 pounds, and my UTV is about 1,100. It’s a lot, but still below the max tow rating of many non-pickup truck vehicles. And many hardware or garden supply store runs would be much lighter.

If you’re a practical person, look hard at the economics of buying and fueling a $60,000 pickup truck. You might find that a smaller vehicle gives you a lot of money left over for trailer rentals. And you probably won’t need them as often as you think.

Besides U-Haul, Home Depot often rents trailers cheap, plus there’s Tractor Supply, Taylor Rental, United Rental, and even some little hardware stores that will rent you one. You might have a trailer rental spot closer to home than you realize. It won’t be a perfect alternative for every pickup owner, but if “occasional hauling” is one of your main reasons for wanting to buy a truck, check out your local trailer rental options. You might just find that you don’t need that permanent cargo bed after all.

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