I was generally very happy with Universal One-way Truck Rental. I called to book a 16' cube van about 4 weeks in advance of my move from NL to NS. Spoke with Shauna and Steve a few times and I found them both to be courteous and responsive. They couldn't confirm the reservation until about 5 days before pick up which made me nervous and ultimately they only had a 24' truck available. They offered the larger truck at the same price. Glad I got the larger truck actually, I needed the space and the diesel fuel ended up cheaper (offset the additional $75 ferry fee for the larger truck).
I went to pick up the truck at 9am as instructed and the dealer was doing a final check. They discovered the e-brake needed to be serviced/replaced and had to send it out to a repair shop. This was frustrating, I feel like this should have been fixed before the scheduled pick up date. But the dealer and Steve made arrangements to have it fixed asap. Huge thanks to Avalon Towing (dealer in NL) for getting it fixed quickly. Was finally able to pick up the truck around 3pm. Not happy about losing 6 hours of loading time but UTR gave me some extra time on the end to drop it off late at no cost.
The truck was actually a pleasure to drive. It had over 300k km but I didn't have any major problems. These 24' trucks are bigger than anything I had ever driven, I felt like I should have had a special driver's license but oh well. A coolant warning came up a few times but I called Steve and he walked me through the process, appeared to be a bad sensor, we topped it up with some water and it was fine.
Filed up the tanks to the brim right before dropping off and my deposit was reimbursed within a few days.
All in all I was pleased. UTR was about $800 cheaper than Uhaul. It's a no frills truck rental company but I found the customer service to be great and the truck did the job. Would definitely recommend to anyone in Canada looking for a one-way truck rental alternative.
A couple notes - it wasn't cold (~5-10C) so I didn't have any cold start problems, didn't have any windshield damage, and I filled the tanks until they were absolutely topped to the brim. Most of the complaints I read about UTR are for problems I didn't encounter. Read the directions and rental agreement UTR provides and you should be fine.