If you need to move your car to a new city, there are three main options you have at your disposal:
- Enlisting the services of a professional auto shipping company
- Paying a single driver (professional or otherwise) to drive the car to its new location
- Driving the vehicle to its destination yourself
Each of these three choices has pros and cons, so let’s take a moment to explain each in more detail.
This path is arguably the easiest option and usually the best choice.
When you hire a professional shipping company to transport your car across city lines, you can be confident that the proper, experienced drivers will perform the task successfully and with no damage to your vehicle or other drivers.
One potential downside here is that the cost of transportation can be higher.
However, this shipping cost is often not as high as you may think, and it’s also a good idea to factor in potential costs of vehicle damage and delays caused by inexperienced, layperson transportation.
Alternatively, you can hire a freelance driver to transport the car.
This choice is a middle ground between using a professional company to ship your car and driving it yourself. As a result, you partially get the advantage of reliability you find with using a transport company, but with quite a bit more risk to handle.
On the other hand, people often find that an individual driver will have a lower price point than a shipping company.
Those eager to save a buck or avoid others handling their vehicle will see a lot of appeal in this option.
While it’s true that driving your vehicle to its new city yourself can often be a cheaper option than the other two choices, it comes with some caveats. First, any damage done to the vehicle along the way will be solely your responsibility, so you must be confident in your ability to transport the car.
Additionally, long-distance driving can be incredibly laborious, so if the two cities are a vast distance from each other, there might be better ways to go.
There are a few advantages of using a professional, licensed transport company that immediately make it an attractive route:
- Less risk. Due to the experience and high standards a transport company will hold itself to, your vehicle is extremely unlikely to suffer any damage or problems during shipping.
- Little work is required. In contrast to driving the car yourself, hiring a shipping service doesn’t require much labor or energy beyond setting up the shipping process.
- Professional quality. Businesses that ship cars from one city to another will abide by state and federal regulations and standards strictly.
Before shipping your car to a new city, you’ll likely want to budget for the transport process. Fortunately, this can be a pretty straightforward process.
While the price of shipping your car will vary depending on multiple factors, the primary variable you’ll want to look at is the distance between the two cities. As you’d probably guess, the greater this distance, the more you’ll typically pay for shipping.
To get an accurate price estimate, you can contact the shipping company directly or get an approximation using an online calculator.
If you’re unsure what steps should be taken before shipping your car, feel free to use this guide as a quick pre-transport checklist:
- Check the tire pressure. When you check your tires before shipping, you can confirm that the tires haven’t suffered any damage during transport.
- Wash the vehicle. Washing the car will ensure you can carefully inspect the vehicle afterward for any problems that may have occurred in transit.
- Empty the car. Ensure you don’t have any essential belongings in the vehicle, as items can get lost or misplaced along the way.
- Read reviews. Checking online reviews can be a great way to verify that your chosen shipping company is reliable and trustworthy.
- Double-check your budget. Confirm that your budget can account for the shipping costs to prevent any issues with payment.
Intercity auto shipping isn’t always the most straightforward task, but as long as you know your options and plan accordingly, you can safely transport your car to its new home without any hassle or damage.
If you need more help or information in transporting your car or other equipment, look no further than Ship a Car. Check out our website and other services or simply give us a call at (866) 821-4555!
