Car shipping manual

Vehicle itself. First of all, a factor in determining the right price is the size and weight of a vehicle, age and condition, operability as well as any possible modifications to the vehicle, as opposed to its stock dimensions. The smaller the vehicle is, the less space it needs. This gives the driver opportunity to transport more vehicles per one shipment. That decreases the price. Big and heavy vehicles take up more space and add more onto the weight limit (every truck has a defined weight limit), meaning the driver needs compensation for the used up space, which results in an increase in price. Older vehicles cost more, as well as modified vehicles (e.g. lowered sports cars or raised pickup trucks with bigger wheels). One of auto transporting regulations also states that vehicles taller than 8ft cannot be transported on a regular trailer. The same applies to vehicles with a ground clearance that’s less than 4 inches, because vehicles lower to the ground cannot be properly loaded or secured on a regular trailer. Inoperable vehicles are also transported at higher prices, because a winch or forklift is necessary both to load and unload them. Sometimes, some particular inoperable vehicles even need a special type of trailer.

Mileage. The bigger the mileage, the lower the price per mile. This however doesn’t apply to extremely difficult routes.

Route. There are routes that are very frequent and highly covered. Those routes are always cheaper than routes that are unpopular with drivers. Unpopular routes are usually the ones that are in remote areas, lacking good roads, have bad landscape (e.g. mountain areas), have bad connections to major highways or have restricted areas. Some of the states that are quite difficult when it comes to accessibility, frequency and popularity with the drivers include: Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Kansas…In these cases the price per mile is always slightly higher and it doesn’t depend on the actual mileage.

Season. Starting March and up to November, there’s a great number of active drivers because the weather conditions are good. In winter time, there are fewer drivers covering routes and according to basic supply and demand, the prices go up. Particular destinations such as Florida or California also have seasonal prices influenced by winter in the North. When the weather gets cold in the northern parts of the East Coast (New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Illinois…),a lot of people go to Florida to spend the winter. Again, according to basic supply and demand, prices from the NE towards Florida experience a drastic increase, while they also drop coming from Florida towards the North. Come spring, people go back home from Florida, making the prices from FL towards the NE higher, and the ones going to Florida lower.

Dates. Another factor in determining price is how far away the shipping date is or the urgency of the shipment. If a customer needs his vehicle shipped on one particular date or ASAP or NOW, only an expedited price can get the job done. The more flexibility the customer has on his shipping date, (giving us e.g. a 3-5 time window to find a driver), the lower the price is.