In the spring of 2026, I was buying a condo on Lake Monroe near Bloomington, and I knew I’d have a lot of stuff to move. I bought some furniture new and had it delivered, but new furniture plus delivery adds up fast, and furnishing the whole place that way wasn’t in the budget. Most of what I bought was used, either from Christy’s auction here locally or off Craigslist. That meant a lot of pickups from a lot of places, and then about 90 miles of driving each way to get it all to the lake.
So I started thinking about how to move it all.
I’ve Done This Before
About 10 to 15 years ago I owned a box truck for a couple of years, and it was really convenient. Need to move a couch? Done. Pick up an auction lot? No problem. But that truck had two problems.
First, it had a lot of miles and wasn’t very reliable. Second, it was huge. It was tall, wide, and had a big diesel engine. It could haul a ton of stuff, but you had to think about clearance every time you drove it. You couldn’t park it easily, you couldn’t see out of it well, and it was loud. I liked moving things with it. I hated driving it.
This time I wanted the convenience without the misery.
The Ad
I found an ad for an old U-Haul 10-foot box truck built on a 2006 GMC Savana 3500 single-rear-wheel van chassis. An appliance dealer in Anderson, Indiana owned it, and the price was low.
I went to look at it, and it was a little sad. The paint was peeling on the hood, the front fenders, and the roof of the cab, leaving them mottled with primer and surface rust. The driver’s seat was shredded, the steering wheel was rough, and it had a flat tire. It also had 325,000 miles on it.
I almost walked away on looks alone, but the owner said it ran great. I was skeptical.
We pumped up the flat, and it started right up. It hadn’t been run in a while, and there was a lot of steam coming out of the tailpipe. That can mean a blown head gasket, or it can just be water sitting in the exhaust. I took it for a drive to find out.
The Test Drive
The first things I noticed were bad: the driver’s window crank was missing, and there was a horrible rattle in the driver’s door.
The next thing I noticed was that it drove much nicer than my old box truck. It has GM’s 4.8 liter V8, a gas engine from the LS family. It was quiet and surprisingly easy to drive. It wasn’t too wide to park or maneuver, and it wasn’t so tall that I had to watch every overhang. Honestly, it’s about the size of my pickup truck, just with a box on the back.
After a few miles the steam cleared out of the tailpipe, and it didn’t run like an engine with a blown head gasket. Just moisture in the exhaust.
When I got back, I asked what they’d take for it. We settled on $1,750. Cheap, but it needed work.
Bringing It Home, Solo
A few days later I rode my Honda Silver Wing up to Anderson with cash in hand. The plan: buy the van, drive to Lowe’s, buy a 2x12, come back, push the motorcycle up the plank into the box, strap it down, and drive home. It’s the kind of thing you work out when you do things by yourself.
One catch. Unlike my old box truck, this one doesn’t have a pull-out loading ramp. That’s the one feature I really wish it had. I also discovered there were no good tie-down points in the box. With some improvising, I got the bike loaded and secured, and a couple of hours later I was driving my new-old van home.
It ran and drove great. Nothing else did. The driver’s window didn’t work, the heat didn’t work, the AC didn’t work, the radio didn’t work, and by the time I’d driven 20 miles that door rattle had me ready to pull my hair out.
The Fix List
The door. The rattle and the dead window turned out to be the same problem: the window regulator and crank mechanism were shot. I went to Pull-A-Part, found about a dozen similar GM vans, and discovered the window mechanism is riveted in. Rather than drill it all out in the yard, I brought home an entire door. Swapping it fixed the rattle and the window in one shot. While I was there, I picked up a better steering wheel to replace the ratty one.
The body. I filled the dents in the hood with body filler, stripped the rust, and painted the hood, front fenders, and cab roof. It was a quick job and it doesn’t look perfect, but it improved the appearance 100 percent. I also caulked the joint between the cab and the box and sealed a small leak in the box roof.
Maintenance and small stuff. I changed the oil and filters, cleaned the mass airflow sensor, replaced the heater blower motor, recovered the driver’s seat, put center caps on the wheels, and added a tow hitch. For some reason, U-Haul pulls the hitches off before they sell their trucks.
Still to do. I started replacing the radio but haven’t finished. U-Haul also removed the factory diagnostic port, so I’m working on restoring OBD-II access, and I’m considering a backup camera.
So Has It Been Worth It?
Yes. It’s been a workhorse.
I’ve carried load after load of furniture and household goods from Indianapolis down to Bloomington, and the van hasn’t missed a beat. It’ll run 80 miles an hour and tow my landscape trailer easily. I’ve overloaded it a couple of times, and it just keeps going.
It’s also just easy to use. U-Haul sets these trucks up right, with big mirrors, so you can actually see around it. It parks like a pickup, drives like a van, and hauls like a truck.
The real payoff was the furniture. Buying used instead of new probably saved me $25,000 to $30,000, and that only worked because I had a way to go get it. By that measure, the van paid for itself several times over.
What’s Next
The furniture move is done, but I hate to sell it. I’ll probably keep it for a year or so and see whether it stays useful. My guess is that once you have a box truck, you find reasons to use it.
For $1,750 plus some parts, paint, and weekends, I got exactly what I wanted from my old box truck, without the parts I hated.