Auto Transport Tips: Information You Need to Gather
The auto transport industry isn’t all sunshine and daisies when you’re trying to ship a vehicle. It’s expensive and can be difficult to accomplish depending on the company that you hire to ship your vehicle, which is why you should always do your homework on who you’re planning on hiring to ship your vehicle.
Like any rational and thinking human being, you want to know who you’re going to be doing business with before you actually do business with them, and you need to ensure that their business practices line up with what you expect out of them.
This requires some work on your part, most of it incredibly simple, all things considered. Come auto transport time, here’s the most important information you need to gather about your prospective car shipping companies.
The very first thing you want to do is get quotes from as many different companies as possible. You really should create a separate email address just for auto transport quotes, then go from site to site asking companies for quotes or filling out online quote request forms.
Start about two weeks out from the day you need your car picked up – three if you’re living in some rural area and four if you’re living in literally the middle of nowhere. You want to gather as many quotes as you can before you start really digging into who those companies are, so make sure to spend some time getting different prices and gathering quotes from as many different sources as possible.
From there, you need to choose a company to transport your vehicle for you. You can use whatever criteria you want to make a decision on which auto transport company is right for you, but there are some things you’ll want to keep in mind.
Look at how long they’ve been in business – you can easily do this via Transport Reviews, which we’ve discussed before on this website. Transport Reviews keeps track of when companies first signed on with them, and for many it’s been years since they first appeared on the review website.
While you’re there, make sure to read reviews – an older company with lots of glowing reviews is probably one of the best companies out there.
Write everything down. From the name of the person you speak to, to the quote request number that the company gives you, who you speak to and what you talk about, record everything. It’s important to have a record of who you’ve dealt with and what was discussed, mainly because there’s a lot going on in an auto transport company and you won’t always be able to speak to your specific representative.
Anyone in a brokerage can answer questions and look at your order, but if the notes that your rep puts in there about discussions and goings on with your order are spotty, anyone else is going to have a hard time figuring it out and will have to rely on hearsay from you or their coworkers.
Save everyone time and hassle by recording what you talked about with your representative any time you discuss your shipment with them. Write down details, such as dates and names, and it’s a great idea to have a separate notebook dedicated to auto transport information.
If you’d like to get a quote from us, you can do that! Just take a minute to fill out our free online quote request form. You’ll instantly see the total price to ship your vehicle when you need it moved. You can also place your order right there if you’re ready to do that, too.
You can also contact one of our helpful representatives over the phone. Just call us toll-free at 800-930-7417 and someone will be happy to help you. They can answer questions you might have, give you a quote, book your shipment if you’re ready to do that, and will stay with you from start to finish as your personal auto transport concierge.
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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