Auto Transport Recommendations

[bunty]

Was hoping with this post to curate list of decent Auto Shippers..

to begin, I Actually need one right now, Shipping a car from South Carolina to SF.
any recommendations ?

[stuartinmn]

Bill's Auto Works has received a lot of good feedback on the Jalopy Journal / HAMB board, as well as on the Performance Years Pontiac board. He's a single operator with both an open and enclosed trailer. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/thr ... ed.614419/ and http://forums.maxperformanceinc.com/for ... p?t=786352

Another guy who's received good feedback on the HAMB board is Rick Powell. He's also a single operator. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/thr ... rt.614568/

Both guys provide updates in the above threads on where they are and where they're heading, go to the last page of the discussions to find out where they are at the moment.

[bunty]

Excellent thanks

[danix]

I sold a car to my nephew in NJ (E46 330xi) and after research, chose Lucky Star to ship it. Was not the cheapest, but I was comfortable with the owner/driver and everything went smoothly.
Email zoly@luckystarautotransport.com, feel free to mention my name if you want but no affiliation.

[danix]

I will also point out that most brokers don't transport themselves, they book your job then try to get the job done for the lowest price so they can make a buck, some regardless of quality, others more picky. This is why I wanted to deal with an owner/operator. Stories of "we have one spot left on the truck going your way" are BS unless again, you're dealing with the owner/operator.

[svveetmikko]

Hello All,

I recently just acquired my first e28 that I got from the Bay Area, CA with the help from my uncle and very excited to start this new project! I saw this post thread so I figured I wanted to ask and continue this conversation in regards to car transport. I need to transport my car for Bay Area, CA to Portland, OR. So far, I’ve been having really bad experiences with these car transport bigger companies and have had canceled and upsell me with more and more. Let me know if anyone here has some other recommendations. Appreciate any help here. Thank you.

[gray635]

I've always gotten excellent service from Intercity Lines. Just shipped my e92 M3 from Richmond to GA. Great drivers, equipment, service and communication. You may be able to get it done cheaper, but you can't get it done better. Don't fool with the brokers. Call someone who actually has trucks.

[wkohler]

I’ve had two projects leave here on Intercity trucks and I was very impressed each time. I’m sure Reliable, Pilot, Passport or Horeseless Carriage are great, too but no personal experience with either of them.

Other cars have arrived or showed up on trucks booked through brokers and the experiences were mixed. I actually used one of the guys for another shipment to CA, but most of the others I wouldn’t deal with again. I took delivery of a project last year shipped open transport through Montway and it arrived with two nice dents in the roof. The driver was unaware that I wasn’t the buyer of this car said it was like that when he picked it up. Montway has the photos. He quickly changed his tune when he realized the situation. Fortunately no paint damage and PDR was successful, but it was an unneeded complication. The car recently left in an enclosed transporter and made it safely back to him. The pickup was a bit sketchy but I waited and watched until the car was safely in the truck. He was very good though, but it was a needlessly sketchy situation nonetheless.

Enclosed transport is like an insurance policy. Car is not an attractive nuisance and whatever weather issues along the route aren’t likely to affect the car. I have bought plenty of less-than-stellar examples of awesome cars that usually don’t run and it was not worth the risk to me shipping them open.

The thing is though, if you bought something like a $3000 528e, it can be tough to spend what could be 2/3 the purchase price of the car to ship it, while it’s just smart for something like a nice M5 or any car gray635 buys.

Bay Area to PDX is a decent days drive. Why not just go pick it up and drive it back? Some of the best ownership experiences start with a road trip. I can totally see this if you live in Maine and are buying a car from CA (though we have more than one member here that wouldn’t be deterred by that trip either). Plus, I’m sure that route is very expensive with so many people relocating to places not designed to support influx of people and feces.

[gray635]

Hey Chris! You talking about my old collection of junkers???!!! Thanks for the shout-out.

And yes, at some point it does come down to a financial decision. I paid about 20% of the value of my Alfa Milano to ship it from CA to GA. Pretty stupid, I know, but that sunk cost really is sorta like an insurance policy. I didn't want the excitement of a new project on a decent car that has gotten pretty hard to find these days tarnished by transport damage.

[svveetmikko]

Thank you both. Appreciate the input. Ideally, I would fly down and drive it up here but due to current Covid situations, I was trying to see if there are other options. I might have to consider just driving down and drive the car back up maybe on a weekend.

[Adam W in MN]

My E28 535is is one of the projects Chris references with Intercity. They were professional, communicated well, and the car arrived in perfect condition. Worth the price for peace of mind.

[cek]

Read what Chris said.

Use Intercity. Pay a bit more. Reduce stress.

[sQuirly]

I had a buyer ask me to arrange shipping from RI to Texas and their requirement was cheaper the better. I requested a quote thru DAS and got one back from Allied auto transport.
The car wound up on the bottom level of an open carrier.
When it arrived it had obvious damage caused by the upper deck of the trailer.

For 700 more it could have been on a smaller carrier and arrived unscathed.