Auto Shipping

When you first begin your auto transport journey, you will find that there are a few different options in terms of what services are available to you.

For example, most daily driver vehicles are shipped on an open car carrier. Classic cars, antiques, and even high-end luxury vehicles usually benefit from enclosed auto transportation services. Read on to learn more about the different methods available to you and how we can find you great rates to ship your vehicles today.

Open auto shipping 101

The most common auto shipping carrier is an open ten-car carrier. These auto transport carriers are the ones that you typically see on the road stacked high with cars. As the most common carrier on the road, they tend to be the cheapest, and the most readily available.

This results in the lowest prices and fastest pickup times among the various type of carriers available to customers. Open transporters can haul most types of pickup trucks and smaller sport utility vehicles, as well as almost every type of standard car on the road today.

The vast majority of vehicles are shipped on open carriers. It just makes sense – why pay a lot more for something that you’re not really going to need? Open shippers expose the vehicles they ship to the same elements that you do when you drive it. So unless you reserve your vehicle for drives just on sunny days, you shouldn’t have any issues with damage with open transport.

About enclosed auto shipping services

For vehicles that are more rare or expensive, or those that you do not use on your day-to-day travels, it’s generally best to go with an enclosed auto shipping carrier, as these will protect your vehicle from both the natural elements as well as any road debris or errant rocks that are kicked up into the cargo area during transit.

Enclosed shipping is more expensive than open transport. However, it protects the vehicles it ships from the elements of the road. There are a lot of different vehicles on the road today, all requiring different types of carriers to haul them, and this article will briefly go over the basics of each of the most common forms of transport out there you can choose from.

Keep in mind that enclosed auto shipping is more expensive than open auto shipping, but generally if your vehicle’s value is high enough it’s worth the cost to protect it, and if you’re unsure whether or not your vehicle needs enclosed transportation services you can get both open and enclosed quotes via our free online quote request form, and you can read more about the differences between the two different auto transport carriers.

What to know about flatbed transportation

Vehicles such as large Duly pickup trucks and larger sport utility vehicles may need to be shipped via a flatbed auto shipping truck.

These carriers are specialized in that they usually only haul vehicles that cannot fit onto a standard open transport truck. There are lots of reasons why a vehicle wouldn’t fit on a standard truck, of course. But mostly it’s because of their size or weight. This includes non-standard freight such as construction equipment, motor homes and tent trailers, among other things.

Flatbed transportation is generally the most expensive of the bunch because there are few on the road. Not only that, but demand for flatbed shipping is fairly low in comparison to open or enclosed auto transport services.

Those flatbed trucks are also used to haul smaller freight, like golf carts and riding mowers. This is because the weight of those smaller vehicles is less than an oversize pickup or SUV. Vehicles such as motorcycles, ATVs, golf carts and dune buggies, are usually shipped via a flatbed truck.

This usually leads to lower prices, against because of the weight but also because of the fact that, unlike a flatbed carrier that ships oversize freight, companies that specialize in smaller vehicles can put more onto a truck, thus operating more like an open or enclosed carrier in that regard.

Get a great shipping rate today with American Auto Shipping

If you’re interested in a free quote to ship your vehicle fill out our quote request form. We offer quotes for any vehicle shipped to or from anywhere in the U.S. Whether you’re shipping a car, truck, SUV, motorcycle, dune buggy, it doesn’t matter. We can help you ship anything with wheels.

From there, once you submit the form and get a quote, you can contact us over the phone. You don’t even have to get a quote to call us – you can contact us and get a quote right over the phone! No matter what you’re shipping, American Auto Shipping can handle it. So either use our free form or give us a call and find out what we can do for you.