If you want to ship something as precious as your car, you will do well by hiring a professional carrier to do the same for you. You may use their service if you’re are relocating to a new town, moving your car out of storage or purchasing a vehicle from out of town.
Here are a few tips for safe and efficient shipping of your car:
- Examine different pricing quotes: When you are searching for a carrier, you may encounter different price quotes from several auto transport firms. Like any other service, you are likely to get what you pay for. But this does not stop you from working with a budget and shopping around for quotes. Load boards can be used for eliciting competitive bids from carriers.
- Peruse online feedback on the carriers: While comparing the different carriers, examine details like licensing, experience, insurance and authority. Transporters with legal status are required to have Dept. of Transportation (DOT) and Motor Carrier (MC) numbers. Brokers will not have both these numbers. Check using Google or Better Business Bureau.
- Examine insurance and liability: Before choosing a carrier to ship a vehicle, be clear about his limit of liability and also any deductibles. Most carriers offer liability in the range of $50,000 to $100,000 but some may surpass this with $250,000.
- Protect your vehicle: If your vehicles is expensive or vintage, you might want to ship it in an enclosed carrier or have it top loaded. Top loading is costly but it will protect car from debris from road or leak of auto fuels from top.
- Car inspection: Before shipping, examine your car from top to bottom and take dated, clear photos of the car from all angles. Examine for any mechanical or exterior problems. This helps in the process of pressing for insurance claims for damage during transit.
- Remove all items from car: Before shipping, empty the car of all personal belongings. You must not use your car to haul personal items while shipping mainly for safety reasons. For one, it will add to the weight of the car. Secondly, these items will bounce around during transport and get damaged and insurance will not compensate.
- Empty gas tank: Leave only quarter tank of fuel in the car for safety reasons.
- Make an agreement on pickup and delivery point: You have to decide whether to use door to door service or terminal to terminal pickup and delivery. The former is easy but expensive. The latter is a cheaper and better option if the approach to your home is not very navigable.
These are some of the points to keep in mind while shipping your car.
