Anyone have any recommendations on this subject? Need to ship my Jeep from Knoxville to Seattle. I'm not too concerned about how long it takes. I just want to ship it safely and as cheap as possible.

1/26/2015 3:27:53 PM

I've done it from VA to FL and from CA to FL. I can probably find my contact info for the latter, but I don't know that it would do you much good (because it's a matter of fitting into whatever routes they have going at the time), although if I find it, you can try. Maybe you could save money by dealing directly with the shipper, since you aren't time sensitive.

What you'll find is that this is a pain in the ass to find the best deal on. Almost every "shipping company" you'll find isn't actually that at all; they're brokers, so you're also paying their cut. What sucks is that they still won't necessarily get it done at the best deal. They'll make you bids, but that doesn't mean that they actually have a spot worked out for you with a shipping company. They'll throw out a lowball number that almost certainly won't get picked up by any shipper (although you don't know that)...then after a while (maybe a couple or few weeks) of nothing, they call you and say "Yeah we couldn't actually get it shipped for the price we agreed on, so we need you to pay us some more money." I always said "Fuck you, I'll deal with someone else even if it ends up costing me more."


I arranged my shipment the last time using http://www.uship.com, and based on one data point, that was the least painful of the 3 times I've tried to do this (there was another time that got so frustrating that I gave up and just bought a one-way flight to drive it back myself).

1/26/2015 3:48:09 PM

Thanks for the advice! Sound very frustrating and unfortunately driving it myself is out of the question. It's a 86 Jeep CJ7 which is an awful vehicle on the highway. I'm not planning on shipping until June at the earliest so I've got plenty of time to shop around and no real hurry to get it out to Seattle.

Did you find the prices varied much depending on the time of year?

[Edited on January 26, 2015 at 4:53 PM. Reason : yo]

1/26/2015 4:52:44 PM

I'm not sure. All of my cases were very different vehicles, to/from different places, at different times of year, years apart. I can't really discern that info for you from my experiences.

Also, not every broker will pull the bait-and-switch tactic. Understand that it's common, though, maybe to the point that I'd almost expect it from the lowest bidders.

1/26/2015 10:20:33 PM

pay an out of work friend to drive it and his plane ticket back. gas, food, hotel for 3 days and a 1 way plane ticket will probably get you close to the 8 or 900 you can expect to spend.

[Edited on January 27, 2015 at 9:06 AM. Reason : then your buddy gets to see seattle in summer, which is the only time to go]

1/27/2015 9:06:26 AM

I am going through this now and agree with theDuke's comments. many 'auto transport companies' are just brokers who will quote you a price first, THEN they'll try to find a carrier after they've already taken your order (and possibly deposit). 1 week seems to be typical turnaround time for a broker to expect to get a carrier lined up OR come back to you and tell you it'll cost more money

Example brokers: http://www.montway.com/ and http://www.roadrunnerautotransport.com/ (do not use roadrunner, they pulled a 'bait and switch' with me and were a pain to deal with)

I would also recommend trying uship.com as well as http://quotes.transportreviews.com/

1/27/2015 6:02:57 PM