Road Trip Questions

BigBody79

BigBody79

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 30, 2005
Location
Lumberton
We are headed to the great state of Louisiana to play softball leaving on the 28th.

Our little rec All-Star Team won our State Championship and were we go!

We are looking at close to 900 miles each way.

Other than an Oil Change what truck maintenance would you recommend?

I would like a WiFi Hotspot, has anyone ever rented one for a week? What the best network to use?

Any tips or recommendations between here and LA?
 
BigBody79 said:
We are headed to the great state of Louisiana to play softball leaving on the 28th.

Our little rec All-Star Team won our State Championship and were we go!

We are looking at close to 900 miles each way.

Other than an Oil Change what truck maintenance would you recommend?

I would like a WiFi Hotspot, has anyone ever rented one for a week? What the best network to use?

Any tips or recommendations between here and LA?
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Tmobile has (had?) a program where you could test drive a mobile hotspot for a month for free. We did that when schools first shut down for Covid and kids were remote. Check in to that.

As far as maintenance, I try NOT to jump into a bunch of things before a trip. I'm typically more likely to break a bolt or a fitting or something and end up causing myself more problems. If it's in good shape anyway, roll with it. Change oil if it's due but don't strip the plug :)
 
Where you headed in La? Determines the route and what might be along the way.
As far as maintenance, I used to make the La. to NC to La. trip quite regularly when I was stationed at Polk and I would keep it to the basic maintenance items and I always have a toolkit for on the road minor stuff if need be.

p.s. do you know Jonathon Brooks? If so tell him Kris Jorgensen said hello (we were in the army together)
 
fourtrax said:
Fill up your washer fluid.
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x2. On the trip to Montana, we went through four gallons of washer fluid and had long been empty when we got back to the house.

Can always use your phone as a hot spot.

Handy for finding things along/near your route:
roadtrippers.com

Roadtrippers Autopilot

Plan your next trip faster with Roadtrippers Autopilot™
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It all depends on how regularly you look the rig over. I would do an oil change, crawl under and lube everything with a zerk fitting, and give everything with a u-joint or a bearing a good tug, twist, or eyeball test.
If anything under the truck weeps (diffs or transfer case) it is always worth pulling the fill plug and checking the level.
 
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Why get a dedicated hotspot when you can use your phone? We use my phone as the hotspot while the kids are on their tablets. While driving my phone's generally doing nothing but maybe running the GPS if we're going somewhere new.
 
Do you drive the vehicle that you are going to take at 70-80mph highway speeds as part of its regular use? If not, go run it up to that speed and make sure you don't have any funny vibes. Sometimes a slightly out of balance tire won't be obvious until higher speeds.
 
BigBody79 said:
what truck maintenance would you recommend?
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If it's at all possible, renting a minivan and putting gas in it 🤷‍♂️

Sounds boujiee but takes a metric butt-ton of stress completely out of the equation
 
skyhighZJ said:
p.s. do you know Jonathon Brooks? If so tell him Kris Jorgensen said hello (we were in the army together)
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I do know him. He’s a clown, but a good fella. I don’t see him often.

We are headed to Alexandria, LA

I’ve got new tires, there’s a whole thread on that saga. It’s due or close to due for oil, so I’ll do that. I’ll do air filter. Spark plugs have been done in last 15k. Trans has been done in the last 15k.

I’ll be sure to fill up on washer fluid.

The mobile hot spot is because my phone sucks. I’d like something dedicated to iPads and as a back up. We could also stream the game back home to grandparents. Also, having something on a different carrier might be worth it.

I couldn’t even get an iMessage out yesterday. Probably an issue I need to fix. We are with US Cellular and data can be spotty.
 
And as a #girldad who lived the #softballlife...it will DEFINITELY pay off when you dont have to clean the red dirt out of your vehicle.
Man girls and softball bags just attract dirt.

Pay extra for the clean and go insurance and trash that thing...hahah

But seriously...
 
CasterTroy said:
If it's at all possible, renting a minivan and putting gas in it 🤷‍♂️

Sounds boujiee but takes a metric butt-ton of stress completely out of the equation
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Back in my late 20's, four of my buddies and I rented a mini-van and drove to Atlanta for the weekend to watch the SX race, LOL. Good times.
 
We did a ~3500 mile road trip last month in our 11 year old 200k mile suburban. I did an oil change and checked fluids prior but nothing more than that. I didn't want to chance stripping a spark plug in the head or anything. Make sure tires are in good shape, the AC works, and you have lots of charging cables for phones and devices. I wish I'd have thought to rent a hotspot for the kids, but they managed without it. I think we used a phone for a hot spot one time just so they could access something on their switch.
 
Ron said:
Pay extra for the clean and go insurance and trash that thing...hahah
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Rented minivans for years to take to Illinois for similar reasons (dirt roads, and or tar/gravel) then after taking the exploder to the outer banks one year and finding sand in every area for the following 5 yrs, decided to rent a suburban to go back the next year. GREAT decision!!!
 
It isn't a great time to rent cars though, I rented one to take to NH recently, plans changed and I tried to drop it in NH...it was a $1200 extra to not return the car to RDU. It was significantly cheaper to drive the car back and keep it an extra 4 days.

Best prices will come with pickup and drop off at an airport and booked directly through the rental company (don't rent it through those aggregation sites). Also, avoid Hertz!
 
shelby27604 said:
It isn't a great time to rent cars though, I rented one to take to NH recently, plans changed and I tried to drop it in NH...it was a $1200 extra to not return the car to RDU. It was significantly cheaper to drive the car back and keep it an extra 4 days.

Best prices will come with pickup and drop off at an airport and booked directly through the rental company (don't rent it through those aggregation sites). Also, avoid Hertz!
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one way rentals are always much more expensive.
 
shelby27604 said:
I rented one to take to NH recently, plans changed and I tried to drop it in NH...it was a $1200 extra to not return the car to RDU.
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Have you ever tried to rent a car for one-way use? This doesn't sound unusual to me.
 
Ron said:
one way rentals are always much more expensive.
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True, though I rented one from CLT Airport and dropped off in Dayton OH one way and it was right at $100 thru National. That was last fall, but cheap enough to convince me to rent instead of drive a 2nd vehicle back.
 
shawn said:
Have you ever tried to rent a car for one-way use? This doesn't sound unusual to me.
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I have rented several cars for one way use. I have driven a rental to purchase 3 different cars, in 3 different states and never had a drop off premium that was more than a single day rental for a standard round trip (i.e. $60/day was a $120 one-way, 1 day trip).
 
jeepinmatt said:
True, though I rented one from CLT Airport and dropped off in Dayton OH one way and it was right at $100 thru National. That was last fall, but cheap enough to convince me to rent instead of drive a 2nd vehicle back.
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Fake news. Nobody with any sense would buy a used car from Ohio.
 
shawn said:
Fake news. Nobody with any sense would buy a used car from Ohio.
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Toledo is pretty close to Michigan.
But in my defense it was 8 months old and had 6k miles and lived in a garage.
 
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