How Long Will My Car Transport Take?
How long your car transport services take are heavily dependent on where you are shipping from and to, what you are shipping, the route that your auto transport carrier will be traveling on and how many scheduled stops they have to make after your vehicle is picked up.
Auto transportation services take time, often days but it can even take weeks. With tens of thousands of available routes for literally thousands of auto transporters out there shipping cars, they can’t be everywhere at once and they can’t just up and get your vehicle whenever they feel like.
It’s a process, a time-consuming process, and because of it many people don’t really understand why it is the way that it is. Just like you and I, auto shippers have schedules that they have to abide by, and your pickup and delivery dates are just a part of that schedule.
When you book your shipment with your transportation company they will scour the country looking for a carrier to ship your vehicle for you. Once they do, they “dispatch” it, or assign it to a specific truck with a specific driver, and that driver works you into their already-existing (and likely busy) schedule.
This is why it can take anywhere from one to seven days to get your vehicle picked up after it’s dispatched, and that’s after the average one-to-seven day window for even finding a carrier. So typically you’re going to be looking, on average, of about 4-12 days from the moment you book your order until your vehicle is picked up.
Now, once it is, we’re onto travel time, which is pretty static; it depends heavily on the route and the additional stops the carrier needs to make. Note that auto transporters are limited to driving only so far, and only for so long; after one of those limits is up they have to stop, and stop for enough time for them to get a good night’s sleep.
Auto shippers have to abide by regulations that prevent them from driving all night or under dangerous or unsafe conditions, and it’s for a good reason: there won’t be much of a car that’s hit by a 40,000 pound truck with eight cars on it going sixty miles per hour, and that fear contributed greatly to the regulations and safeguards that are in place today.
When it comes down to it, car transport takes time, and for you it’s going to take a lot of patience. It can be frustrating, especially if you’re shipping out of an area that not many auto shippers travel through; you can read more about that phenomenon here. For a free quote, fill out our free online quote request form; you’ll get an instant quote right away. If you have questions, want a quote over the phone, or are ready to ship, give us a call toll-free and speak to a live agent.
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.
