Find The Right Car Carrier For Your Move

Wow…I realize that you are speaking with brokers…but not ever remotely helpful. Sad era of service.

Lesson learned:

If this is the first time you ship a car, please read:

Here is my understanding on how it works based on my experience (shipped my car twice across country):

Most car transporters place their bids in a common pool, where drivers will pick cars with their preferred bids to ship. If the transporter places a higher bid on shipping your car, it is more likely your car will be picked up quickly by a driver (because the driver wants to earn more and tends to pick cars with higher bids). Of course, the price for you will be consequently higher.

Different transporters have different strategies on how to place their bids. Some tend to place their bids low, so their quote to customer appears pretty low too (comparing to quotes from other transporters). This strategy may work pretty well when the demand is low (more drivers available, fewer cars to ship). Differently, some other transporter may place relatively higher bids, so the car is likely to be picked up and shipped sooner, with a higher price for the customer. This strategy may achieve better guarantee on their promised pick-up date/window.

So here is the deal: if your pick-up date(s) are pretty flexible, the former strategy may offer you a better price. Patriot Auto Transport is this case. When you sign up with Patriot Auto Transport, they will tell you “your car will be picked up within in … (a range of date)”, plus “this is not a highly traveled route and may yield an expanded pickup window…” in the fine print. Pay attention to this, because their pickup dates are not guaranteed. When you want to coordinate your moving activities (say house-hold loading, move-out, air tickets & hotel booking, etc.), and cannot afford changes on pickup/delivery date, then you better choose other transporters using the latter strategy (higher bid, guaranteed service).

Of course, in this discussion, we don’t consider dishonest transporters who use low quote attract customer, and later raise their price when your car is picked up…

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Update: June 5, 2018

After 9-day waiting (business day, not calendar day), they refunded me the deposit because they couldn’t get my car picked up on time. I know there is fine print in their contract saying “this is not a highly traveled route and may yield an expanded pickup window…” But as a customer, I can’t help wondering why you put something like “you car will be picked up within 1-7 days after your first available pick-up date” in the contract at the first place. If you can always use the fine print terms/conditions to bail you out, what is the point to throw in those number???

From a customer perspective, the only thing that matters is whether their car can be picked up on time. If not, this isn’t much to further talk about.

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Initial review: May 22, 2018

Deposit paid, after 8 business days, still waiting…

Used Patriot Auto to ship my car from CA to VA last summer, and the experience was good. So this month, when I moved back to CA, I chose their service again without even quoting from other transporters. I paid the deposit upfront, and was told my car will be picked up within 1-7 days after the first available pick-up date. Now it has been 2 days past the pickup window, and my car is still not scheduled for pickup yet. I cannot say I am not a little disappointed….

To be fair, Alison did answer to my inquiries promptly when I sent her emails.

Will update soon…

Terrible service! Was not treated well and the employee Carlos I was in contact with was extremely unprofessional. I ended up needing to cancel my shipment and gave weeks in advance notice. Carlos emailed me back responding, “NO REFUND!!!”. I lost money and I didn’t get to ship my car. I recommend spending more and going with a company with better google and yelp reviews such as Global Auto Transport.