Auto Transport Tips: Exercise Patience
Shipping a vehicle is a fairly time-consuming process unless you’re shipping only a short distance. While the process that is used today is the most efficient, it still has its flaws, with perhaps the most commonly-discussed among them being the amount of time it actually takes to get a vehicle shipped from when you first book an order to the day it’s delivered. There are several different reasons as to why it takes so much time, namely the fact that your shipment goes through several different phases, each one that requires its own completion window that varies in terms of length.
This is why it’s important to exercise patience at each stage of the shipping process. When you first book your order with a car shipping company, you’re going to have to wait for them to find a carrier to help you actually get your vehicle shipped. This can take anywhere from a day or two to a week or two, and sometimes even longer if you’re shipping to or from the middle of nowhere. Your broker’s job is to find a carrier for you, but this can take time, so make sure you put aside the time and dedicate yourself to sticking to the shipment.
It’s not just patience, though; you also need to show some restraint. It can be frustrating having to wait a while, and once your vehicle is assigned to a carrier you have to wait another few days for them to arrive to pick your vehicle up. Pickup windows are rarely fun for customers, because it requires you to be flexible over the course of a few days as opposed to hours, but once the vehicle shipping carrier actually arrives the process is actually fairly quick and usually takes no longer than an hour for one vehicle, often times half that.
Then comes transit time, which is another beast entirely. Car shipping carriers can usually travel 350-400 miles per day, on average, sometimes faster depending on their routes. Typically, a cross-country shipment (say, Boston to San Francisco) will take anywhere from 10-14 days. This is because those carriers will have other customers to service along the route they take from coast to coast. Shorter shipments will, of course, take less time, and the vast majority of shipments are completed within seven days from the day of pickup. Most shipments, from start to finish, are taken care of and completed in less than two weeks, with many hovering around the ten-day mark.
If you’re interested in shipping a vehicle, take a minute to fill out our free online auto transport quote request form. When you do, you’ll receive multiple free quotes in your email inbox from top-rated car shipping companies completely free of charge. Compare those companies against one another, including prices and services, and even discuss your shipment with one of their live auto transport representatives over the phone. If you have questions about our services, or need some help getting your quotes, give us a call any time at 800-930-7417 to speak to one of our own live agents.
Since 2007 Dave has written all the content and blogs for American Auto Shipping and during this time added the duties of customer support and transport logistics.
He currently resides in Washington with his three kids and their mom and cat. A fan of Marvel movies and good stories, when not shipping cars Dave can be found working on his novel, enjoying a good book or playing some tournament HALO.
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