Car Transport Services - How the car shipping process actually works - and what you need to know
Car Shipping - The process explained:
How does the shipment of a vehicle across the USA actually happen ?
CAR TRANSPORT SERVICE - An in depth explanation of car transport services, and how to decide on the right auto shipping company for your vehicle shipping needs.
If you have ended up on this page, it is more then likely because you are desperately searching for a legitimate car shipping provider, but just can't seem to find the right level of comfortability with any particular provider. You have likely ran across some of the bigger names in the industry already, such as Montway, Roadrunner, Sherpa, Nexus & Amerifreight just to name a few. The industry is often difficult for the average first time car shipping customer, as it is a very different type of industry, and the way auto shipping works really doesn't cater to how customers in the 21st century expect a service to go. Instantaneous results, guaranteed pricing, rapid pickups, on demand trucks, highly rated reviews - these are what consumers are looking for, but rarely are able to find it when shipping a car. The reasons for this are many, but let us just touch on a few of the biggest reasons why shipping a car and locating a great car transport service is very different then other services you might order, and how to narrow down your search to a few great companies.
How it all works - How the car shipping industry actually goes about moving cars and why you need to understand it. Shipping a car takes place on commercial load boards, like Central Dispatch and Internet Truckstop, not on retail websites like USHIP or Montway.com, or Shiply. This is something very few people realize. Regardless as to where you end up , online, and regardless as to whom you hire, your load , or your "car" eventually will end up on a legitimate live commercial load board, (usually listed by a freight broker ) where actual trucking companies ( thousands of them all over the USA) are actually searching for loads on their specific routes. You can take a look at the airRyd load board here to get a basic idea as to what a load board looks like here : airRyd Load Board
The reason the process works like this, is because there isn't one single company or even several companies large enough to handle the entirety of the vehicles that need to move across the USA. Larger providers like Fed Ex and UPS , or Amazon, have never had any interest in getting into vehicle transport, and they never will. It is a very difficult industry to scale, and one scratch on one car can cost you an entire run. So the larger providers have already looked at it, and said "No Thanks". So what that means is, the industry is entirely made up of relatively small trucking companies with 1-3 trucks. Some larger auto transport companies might have up to 50-100 trucks. But that pales in comparison to say Swift that has over 50,000 trucks on the road.
What this all adds up to , for the consumer is a process that requires flexibility. Why ? Simply because it takes more then one party involved to complete the move. So when you hire say airRyd.com to facilitate your auto transport across the USA, airRyd has to place your load on commercial load boards, along with our own load board, and essentially wait until we have inquiries from trucking companies to move that said load. Everything on the front end, is always an estimate or close approximation, which is typically based on the route, the type of car, the time of year, the total distance (in miles) , current demand on said route, weather, the speed at which a customer wants a load moved, availability of trucks in an area, and previous load cost comparisons. So several factors play into a quote. Some websites online will be better at quoting orders then others. A very well seasoned auto transport freight brokerage company, can usually estimate to within $150 of accuracy. But it remains an inexact science. This is typically where the average consumer has difficulty. They are looking for a hard guaranteed rate, a guaranteed pickup time, etc etc. And some companies will absolutely lie to these customers, and do so to gain the business of the client. Only later will the client find out that these promises cannot be met. This is also why so many auto transport companies have terrible reviews on Yelp and Google. They are well aware of the consumer desires, and they prey on those who are demanding them, rather than simply being honest and explaining the process. They end up gaining a client, but likely also end up with another negative review online after the shipment has been completed. But because customers are so obssessant about having hard numbers and hard dates, the process just continues playing out day after day and year after year. A good amount of clients will ignore a plethora of terrible Yelp reviews, in favor of a low price guarantee or a date guarantee, even though no company can make these guarantees.
So why can't we avoid this issue and hire a trucking company directly ?
The obvious response that many consumers tend to have, when having a bad experience with a car transport service provider, is to decide to go straight to the trucking companies that actually haul cars - and while it's possible this might work, its far more likely that this plan will also fail.
The Largest private car hauling database available to the public with over 1300 trucking company profiles, loads completed , DOT info, Insurance Info, & company ratings is available ONLY on airRyd.com HERE:
Car Transport Service Trucking Company Database
The reason it's so difficult to hire a trucking company directly, is simply due to logistics. As we mentioned above, most car transport companies (trucking companies) typically only have a fleet of 1-3 trucks. What this means is that if they are doing routes from TX to WA and you have a car in FL and you want to move it to Boston, MA, there is simply no way they will even consider moving your load, and if they did they'd likely want double or triple the price to do it, that you would otherwise pay. This is because they would have to go way outside of their typical route, and create an entirely new route and load , all centered around your one car. So they will charge you a premium for this. Secondly, timing is the other huge problem. When I used to haul cars, I would have repeat clients try to hire me to do a load for them, but rarely could I make it work, simply due to their schedule VS my route schedule. If you are trying to move a car within a 2-3 day window, out of Phoenix, AZ , but my route has me in Sacramento , CA during your requested 2-3 day pickup window, I will not be able to accommodate your request. And again, if I did try to accommodate it, it would come with a hefty price for me to venture way off route. Trucks need several cars (loads) to make a run work, so one single car just is not that important to a truck. They need several loads strung together in a very organized way for them to make money. They cannot make money going half way across the country for one car.
Now you can compare the above scenario, to when a freight broker places the load on a national load board, and trucks in the immediate vicinity are searching for loads on the exact route your trying to move your vehicle - obviously this is why load boards are so essential to the car hauling industry. They do an excellent job of locating the nearest available trucks for a load, at the most economical cost points. These are just a couple of the reasons it is so challenging hiring trucks directly VS hiring freight brokers, you can also watch this video for an even further understanding of this dynamic :
What about USHIP or SHIPLY Car Shipping Services ?
Another option that many encounter when looking for a legitimate option for shipping their vehicle, is USHIP or SHIPLY. Both Shiply and Uship are essentially retail load boards, they are places where retail private clients can post loads, or jobs, and trucking companies will inquire on these loads or bid on these jobs. Unfortunately what most don't realize when utilizing these services, especially when it comes to moving cars, is that the supposed "trucking companies" bidding on your load, are not trucking companies at all, rather they are freight brokers, that are posing as trucking companies. So what happens once you accept a bid , on either Shiply or USHIP, is your same load has to be brokered out yet again on a legitimate commercial load board like Central Dispatch, in order to actually move the car. So your winning bid, or accepted bid on these sites is essentially meaningless, as the car still has to be brokered out to a trucking company on a real load board, so the rate is actually not guaranteed until this part of the process takes place. We have a video about USHIP also here:
So what is the best solution for shipping a car and selecting a car transport service ?
Obviously , we are bias so we would recommend our own company of course, airRyd.com - but with that being said, you can check any other companies you may be evaluating with the criteria below :
COMMON RED FLAGS OF CAR TRANSPORT SERVICE PROVIDERS
- Guaranteeing Rates on the front end of your transport. (Rates can be estimated to within $100-150 in most cases but it's impossible to say 100% on the front end or give an exact figure. )
- Guaranteeing times or dates. (Transports work within 2-3 day windows of time , not specific times - it's impossible for a company to promise this even if they wanted to. )
- Requiring full up front payment for the full cost of the transport.
- Price Locking quotes or exact numbers. ( Sherpa Auto Transport does this with some success only because they tend to overquote every transport by anywhere from $300-500 - so your paying a hefty price for an artificial price lock that is not even guaranteed ).
- Aggressive tactics like cold calling customers from lead lists and offering to have your vehicle loaded within hours or minutes, or promising all kinds of gimmicks. ( Dynamic Auto Movers is probably one of the most well known for incredibly aggressive phone and sales tactics. )
- Telling customers things like "We need a deposit now to hold the spot ". This is one of the many lies transport companies will throw at their client on the front end. When a quote first comes in, these companies have not even had time to upload these orders to central dispatch or any other transport load board. So these claims are 90% false. It's yet another pressure gimmick to get one to book an order with them.
- The broker company will act as if they are the trucking company and they are in command of their own trucks. ( Instead of being honest and explaining the process of shipping a car, a typical tactic is to dupe the customer by claiming to have their own trucks, so that the customer will book the order. )
- Not disclosing the fees that they charge. ( Most transport companies try to obscure the reality of what's going on when shipping a car. Every broker is out to make a huge cut on every order, and that will inevitably lead to reduced carrier quality on every load. This is why airRyd discloses our fees that we charge on every single order - which you can view here. )
- Not disclosing or explaining that the quote is indeed a "close approximation" and not a hard final number. ( The rate cannot be locked in on the front end until a carrier is officially assigned to the order, at that point the rate will become final. This is something that is rarely explained to customers. )
- No Yelp Page or a Yelp page with poor reviews and ratings. ( Although we ourselves are a victim of Yelp's aggressive algorithms of filtering out a huge % of our legitimate reviews , we continue to believe it remains one of the best metrics to actually check the reliability of some of these transport companies. )
Many companies will prominently display a 4.9 or 5.0 on their website or on transport reviews, but then on Yelp they will have a 2.0 or worse. Yelp does a great job of filtering fake reviews - and this industry is one of the worst when it comes to fake reviews. Google reviews are a somewhat distant 2nd, but still far superior to what's left after Yelp. Many have asked us about BBB, but from what we have seen BBB is not a reliable review site any longer , at least not for this particular industry. They simply charge a monthly fee and are mostly hands off after that, and their review algorithms essentially allow any and all reviews to stick. - No Bond information or company location within the USA is displayed on their website. ( Many pop up sites are not even operating within the United States ).
- Little to no real information about the shipping process is found on their website. ( Montway for instance has a process that states: 1.) Get a quote. 2.) We Pickup your car. 3.) Receive your car. ) If only the process was this simple !!!!! Many companies if not the majority simply rely on consumer ignorance to keep their business going. Keeping customers in the dark is the name of the game.
To get a quote from us, please go to airRyd.com
For even more information on the world of auto transport, be sure to check out our growing YouTube Channel at Auto Transport For Dummies
Also be sure to check out our highly acclaimed FAQ page with the most in depth answers on everything car shipping that you will find online here: The Most In Depth Auto Transport Service FAQ Page
Happy Hauling out there folks !!
Written By: Wes Hopkins / Founder of airRyd.com & Auto Transport For Dummies
Wes has extensive experience in the auto transport industry, having been a professional car hauler himself for over 5 years before launching the YT Channel, "Auto Transport For Dummies" as well as airRyd.com - which is now a leading provider of auto transport services. He also has appeared on sites such as "Shoutout Arizona" for his outstanding achievements in the industry.
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