I need to move my dad’s car from his house to mine. I’m in Orlando, and the car is in New Jersey. I checked pricing a month ago, and it was cheaper. So I did find a couple of companies trying to honor my target price but don’t want to be taken for a ride. All these companies say they have “great reviews” but every once in awhile there’s this story of all hell breaking loose, damaged cars, whatever. Don’t’ want this. Any idea who is good? Google’s top 3-4 must be there for a reason right? But an experience to go by from y’all would be great.
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Since this is looking for personal experiences, I’ll put it in our In My Humble Opinion forum.
Moving thread from ATMB to IMHO.
I’ve never used them to ship my own car but I have driven cars from http://www.autodriveaway.com/ several times over the years. I recall the first time being somewhat skeptical at the appearance of the little, out of the way office, but the experience turned out fine.
One car broke down. The company quickly arranged a tow and repair with no cost to me. The car broke down a second time and they gave me another car the next day.
Overall, my experience with this company has been very positive.
Not quite what you’re asking, but…
I’m assuming that you don’t have the time to fly up and drive it down yourself - NJ to Orlando would be 2 solid days of driving (1100 or so miles depending on where in NJ). Not that I-95 is anything remotely approaching fun - we’ve done the drive from Washington to Palm Beach a number of times, and it’s boring - but it can be kind of a zen thing to just tool along by yourself, listening to whatever you want to listen to.
Or if long-distance driving is not your thing, you could fly up, drive it to just south of Washington, and take the Auto Train on down to Orlando.
If you see a story about a company damaging a car, don’t use that company. What’s the problem? You sign a contract for a price and you pay the price. I’ve never heard of a shipping company trying to jack up the rate on delivery, though I have heard some stories about things like loading or unlading furniture became a dispute.
Just make sure the contract spells out exactly what is expected from the company. Pick up car from location X, load onto truck or train, deliver to location Y, unload from truck or train.
My wife used to work for Auto Driveaway.
She was the administrative assistant at the Kansas City office, and would also work as a professional driver for them. Most of the cars are driven “casually” - you want it to get to LA, they find someone who want to drive to LA, but doesn’t want to drive their own car. It will get to LA when they have somebody heading there. If you’re in a hurry to get it there, you pay them to hire a professional driver to get it there.
I’ve never heard of Auto Driveaway before I met her, but it’s a small company that provides a service. A lot of their clients are big companies who lease a lot of vehicles, and will fire someone in one city and hire someone else in another city, and it’s cheaper to have Auto Driveaway move the vehicle than the end one lease and start another.
I’d see if any dealerships or car auctions had paid drivers. My father, after retiring, used to do that. The auction or dealer had a car that was wanted, in, say, Houston. So Dad would drive it down there and they paid to fly him back. Sometimes it was an exchange, and he would drive a different car back. This got him and my mom some fun mini vacations. Take a car to California, they pay to fly him back. Mom would ride out with him. Of course my folks had to pay her way on their own, but it was still cut travel costs by 50%.
Ive shipped cars a few times and in general, it’s a good practice to contact a couple for a price before deciding on one. The prices can change seasonally so that may be what you’re seeing in the cost difference. The route along the east cost is a popular one so you should have plenty of options. I’ve had good luck with A-1 Auto Transport, Inc. if you need a place to get a quick estimate on the cost.
One thing I would caution is that you might want to be careful looking for a bargain. That’s often where those horror stories you’ve heard about come from. If one company is way cheaper than the others, I’d make sure I do my research on them. The FMCSA has databases that can be helpful for this. The main thing is to find someone reliable with a verifiable track record, particularly in the areas you’re shipping to and from. The prices should be at least in the same ballpark from one company to another. Hope this helps.
I remember in the 50’s, I was eight years old, the family drove a Chrysler 300. From Las Vegas, to the owner in NYC.
We were stylin’. We paid for gas, the owner paid for oil, tires, etc.
We might have received some compensation, also.
I guess those businesses don’t exist anymore.