Hello NAM'ers:

I am looking at incredibly high prices these days even for open shipping. Have a MINI I'm strongly considering but would hate to waste the seller's time asking for more info than he has provided until I can zone in on a reasonable shipping cost as the slick top incredibly well-maintained R53 is 2000+ miles away and shipping to Seattle is costing $1800 (open).

Any recommendations on which companies you all have had success with ? Thank you all in advance.

 

I used ShipACarDirect about 6 months ago and had a great experience.

https://www.shipacardirect.com

 

From my past experience which isn't all that recent I found that most companies are really just brokers and you could wind up with the same guy picking up your car no matter who you contracted with. If responsibility is important you really need to find a company that handles it all themselves. Worst thing that every happened to one of my cars was a dead battery after the trip. Make sure your insurance carrier covers this, I wouldn't rely on the shippers insurance, who knows if they actually paid the bill for it.

btw - my uncle back in the day toured the country many times over driving cars for people. He got paid doing what he loved.

 

100% true, the company you use acts as a broker and puts the details into their system, and then drivers decide whether they want to haul it. I'm not sure if there is a way to book without a broker.

 

I have used Uship they will post your request and different people will bid on it you can read their ratings and price before you make a decision

 

I've heard good things about plycar but its on the more $$ side. I've got to ship a car from FL to CA here soon and trying to figure out what company to go with.

 

For sure look around and avoid brokers. Brokers usually have a deposit or a fee they charge, then whatever they say is due at delivery was what the driver actually charged.
Being not in a hurry is also a big help as being able to schedule it rather than it has to be picked up by friday will help reduce cost too.
Make sure they are insured, and not a bad idea to get the car insured prior to shipping.
Have the person the car being picked up from take several pics of the car AT the time of loading and with the mileage. I always let the driver watch me take the pics and even take pics of the car once loaded on the truck. And I'll tell them I'm sending the pics to the customer this way if they are going to do something shady they are more likely to do it with a different car they have loaded since they know I did all those pics.