( 
)5 Important Tips on Moving Your Car, Truck or SUV
How to avoid scams and headaches, while safely shipping your vehicle
1.) Find an auto transport company that is ACCOUNTABLE. The easiest way to do this is to find a company from a site like TransportReviews.com. They offer thousands of ratings and reviews on auto transporters. No matter what company you choose make sure the company knows that you found them on TransportReviews.com. Or at minimum let them know that you know of the site and are going to post a review on their service, good or bad.
TIP: Educated consumers always get the best deals and service. Blindly trusting someone to ship your vehicle is a recipe for disaster and many headaches.
2.) Avoid Companies That Hide Their Identity - When you call and auto transporter or visit an auto transporters website you should be able to find out the following information:
- Their mailing address.
- Phone numbers including a LOCAL phone number (not just 800 numbers)
- Their MC number - This is the number assigned by the government to licensed brokers and carriers.
- Whether they are a broker or a carrier or both
- Whether the car will be shipped on a company owned truck or not.
3.) Verify the company’s MC number - Using a government site like: http://www.safersys.org/CompanySnapshot.aspx you can view the companies information. They should be willing to help you do this. This will allow you to verify if they are indeed a broker or carrier. If they are a carrier it will tell you if they are allowed to ship vehicles and much much more.
Most importantly you can catch companies who are trying to hide their identity.
4.) Compare Prices - If you want to quickly get scammed get a bunch of price quotes and choose the lowest one. Or get a bunch of price quotes and blindly choose the highest. The fact is that the industry is not regulated by the government but instead by TRANSPORTATION MARKET FORCES. So most legitimate companies prices will be within a 10 to 20% of each other ($100 to $200).
LOW PRICE - The company with the lowest price is not always a scam. But frequently they under quoted the move. A harmless miscalculation can lead to major headaches that account for 80% of issues when moving a vehicle. Even if a company promises the price is on the up and up unless they are shipping the vehicle on a company owned truck they may be mistaken. The transport market decides the correct prices based on fuel prices. If your move is priced to low or aggressively for the market your vehicle will not move.
HIGH PRICE - If their price is much higher ask them why. If they say they are a quality company find their rating on TransportReviews.com. And ask them what they do differently from other brokers and or carriers to earn the extra money.
HIGH PRICE - If their price is much higher ask them why. If they say they are a quality company find their rating on TransportReviews.com. And ask them what they do differently from other brokers and or carriers to earn the extra money.
You can use one of many services that provide multiple quotes for filling out one form. One such service is AutoTransporter.com. AutoTransporter.com gets quotes from companies well rated on TransportReviews.com.
5.) Complete The Cycle - In order to complete the cycle you must hold the auto transport broker and auto transport carrier accountable. During the transport make sure you call them as deadlines approach. The squeaky wheel gets the oil.
When you your transport is complete, RATE & REVIEW THE COMPANY. If the company did a great job then reward them and others with that information. If they did poorly let others know.
I hope these tips have helped you with the extremely important decision of choose a vehicle transport company.
Good luck!
Guide created: 04/12/07 (updated 05/05/09)
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