Door-to-door car transport by open carrier is the most common method of transporting a vehicle across the country. And often the service is exactly that: door-to-door. The car carrier will load up a vehicle at one home address (or place of business) and deliver right to another home address (or place of business), as requested by the customer. But there are times when that convenience is not logistically possible. Especially for cities like San Francisco, New Orleans, New York City, or Washington DC, it is realistic to plan to meet your carrier outside of the tight metropolitan area.

The open carriers that ship vehicles across the country are large, multi-vehicle haulers. For standard door-to-door service, you are contracting transport on just one truck and usually just one driver. That one large truck has to have enough space to easily access each address and load or unload vehicles safely. Such loading is not possible in tight downtown areas, especially with one way streets and congested traffic, steep hills or security restrictions. These are all challenges that your driver simply can’t negotiate.

For car transport to or from major cities, it is realistic to plan to meet the carrier outside of the urban area. Because the carrier needs a wide, open space away from traffic, a meeting location in a nearby shopping mall parking lot is a popular option. If you don’t know the city very well, your driver may have a suggestion too. Either way, it’s best to allow for a little flexibility when coordinating carrier arrival. It may mean that you have to rely on a friend to drive you or public transportation to get to/from the meeting location. And to spare yourself some angst, don’t schedule other important activities on the day of the meet.

Your driver would prefer to make car transport completely convenient for you. But for major metropolitan areas, it is more realistic to think of the service as person-to-person rather than door-to-door. If you have any questions about that, feel free to give us a call: 866-221-1664.