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How to prepare your car for a perfect shipping experience

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Home  |  Car Transport   |   How to prepare your car for a perfect shipping experience

Moving from one place to the next can be a time consuming and stressful experience. Not only will you need to move all of your personal belongings, but you may also need to move your vehicles if it is too far to drive. Fortunately, there are car shipping services that can handle this for you. There are several tips that should be followed that could help you to have the perfect shipping experience when you are shipping your car.

Know the Agreement

Whenever you are shipping your car, the first thing you need to understand is the shipping agreement for your vehicle. A shipping agreement for a vehicle can be a complicated agreement. You need to make sure that you fully understand all of your responsibilities, the costs associated with shipping your vehicle, and when you will be able to get your vehicle back. This will help to ensure that you are fully aware of the entire process and know what you need to do to make sure this process goes as smoothly as possible.

Clean it and Take Pictures

Before you put your vehicle into a shipping container, you should make sure that it is fully cleaned out of time. When you have your vehicle please, you will be able to easily identify any existing scratches, dents, or other imperfections inside and outside of it. You should then take pictures of your vehicle and make inventory of any things that is wrong with it. When you get your vehicle back, this will make it easier to identify it whether or not something was wrong or happened to your car during the shipping process.

Take Personal Items

If you have any personal items in your vehicle make sure that you have them taken out before you your vehicle shipped. Any items, including loose change, important documents, or other personal items should be taken with you and stored with your other personal belongings. This will make sure that nothing gets lost during the shipping process.

Disable Alarm

During the shipping process, your car may be tilted and stored in a manner that could affect the car alarm. To ensure the alarm does not go off inadvertently, you should have it turned off. The shipping service should be able to help you with this if you do not know how to do it.

Get it Checked

You should have your car checked before having it shipped. This will include making sure you have adequate levels of oil and gas, proper tire pressure, and no leaks. Any minor issues your car has should be fixed before shipping.

Insurance

Before you purchase any shipping policy, you should also make sure that you are properly covered by insurance. Depending on the type of auto insurance you have, your vehicle may not be covered for any commercial shipping purposes. If this is the case, you should consider getting additional auto insurance from the shipping company. This will provide you with a variety of types of protection.

Frequently Asked Questions

Answers to Your Car Moving Questions

The hardest thing for people researching car moving companies to understand is that the prices they are getting are not hard and fast gaurantees, but rather ESTIMATES of what one company thinks it will take to get a vehicle moved promptly versus another company's opinion of what it will take. Don't be fooled, there are not carriers committed to take your vehicle at these quoted prices, the company you choose will still have to get to work getting a carrier to commit to move it at the price they quote you.

Your total price breaks down into two parts, the broker's fee (or 'deposit' as everyone calls it) and the carriers fee (your COD amount) Make no mistake about this, EVERYONE YOU ARE GETTING SALES CALLS FROM IS GOING TO BROKER YOUR MOVE. In this industry, there are brokers who try to fool you into thinking that they are the actual carriers and there are an equal amount of carriers who sell themselves on the fact that they have a truck or two but are not being honest about the fact that they broker out 90% of the orders they book. Here is a quick easy way to tell, if a company takes an up front fee, whether they call it a deposit or any other name, they are a broker. Carriers do not take any payment until the vehicle is delivered.

In our opinion, you are crazy to do so. Have you ever been paid up front for the work that you perform for your employer? Why would you pay a fee up front when there are reliable and trustworthy companies like ours that won't ask for it until we provide you with your carriers details?

The average transit time from pick up to delivery on any vehicle going coast to coast will be between one and two weeks. From there you can figure your transit time based on how far your vehicle is traveling, i.e. from either coast to the Midwest might average 3-7 days.

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