Guest bastaad525 Posted February 26, 2006 Share Posted February 26, 2006 As an asides to my other topic.... looking at getting one of our two cars shipped from CA to VA. Was hoping some guys here have used some various companies and could give an idea what are some good ones out there and maybe an idea of cost? Literally from one coast to the other so i know it's not gonna be cheap... but I figure with my cars gas mileage and needing 91 octane it'd be approximate $300-400 to drive it myself. Anyways, if anyone can recommend me some car shipping companies that would be great. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaleMX Posted February 26, 2006 Share Posted February 26, 2006 I got my Datsun on Ebay. It was shipped from Texas to Georgia. It came via Dependable Auto Shippers, Inc. out of Mesquite Texas. They did a good job and delivered it to my place of business. Maybe they have a connection for you. 1-800-826-1083 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lewis Maudlin Posted February 26, 2006 Share Posted February 26, 2006 I found my shipping company by doing an online search. I got quotes from 5 or more different companies. I then searched them on the web to figure out which one was best and cheapest. I would suggest you do the same since no one on this site will have the exact prices from CA to VA. Also, the following things figure into the price: 1. Is the vehicle running? Can it be driven under its own power onto a car carrier? 2. Are you shipping from terminal to terminal? 3. If not, how far is the car from the nearest terminal? 4. Are you using a closed carrier? I didn't and mine had every piece of road dirt between Oregon and Indiana. You did not include this info which would be necessary for an apple to apple comparison. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparky Posted February 26, 2006 Share Posted February 26, 2006 I had a car shipped from San Jose to Texas 8 years ago for around 650$. took them a few weeks and it was covered in trash and dirt. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
savageskaterkid Posted February 26, 2006 Share Posted February 26, 2006 hey bastaad, if you can find a cheaper way then 600, I'd be very interested, because I think my next Z may come from California, and I need to get it shipped if I buy it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparks280zt Posted February 27, 2006 Share Posted February 27, 2006 buy me a plane ticket and i drive it back for u! I love road trips. Anyways I have a few friends who have used Dependable Auto Shippers (DAS) and have had no complaints. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EZ-E Posted February 27, 2006 Share Posted February 27, 2006 I was going to say that if you ship that will eat up money as well, trips from one coast to the other arent that expensive really, but the shipping will cost you in at least the 1200-1600 range for two cars. 200-350 for plane tickets, thats amost 2 grand straight away, and you have only another 2 to work with. Its going to be hard and you need to make it with what you got as stated in the other post, go with as little as you can and drive yoru vehicles cross country. Depending on how well you can drive it. Not doing a lot of stopping and a lot of driving you can make the trip in less then 3 days. Good luck to you ! Ill go with sparks to drive the other car if you must fly, I love road trips. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bastaad525 Posted February 27, 2006 Share Posted February 27, 2006 sorry guys for not giving more complete info. here's the deal... as mentioned, this is in regards to my other current thread, which is me and my wife are packing up and moving from CA to VA. Thanks to some helpful tips, we have decided it would be very cost effective to just sell off all of our furniture... instead of paying an estimated $2000-2500 to ship it. So now we're bringing IN money instead of spending a ton of it... most of our furniture is cheap and easily replaced, so no big loss there. This leaves us trying to pack as much of our essentials as we can into both of our cars, and either a) driving both of them across country or driving one ourselves and having the other shipped. The two vehicles are an '05 Dodge SRT-4 and an '06 Honda Civic. Both are brand new and run fine under their own power it would be no problem bringing one to the terminal and picking it up at the destination terminal if we end up shipping one. Now here is the problem... we have and are considering driving both of them across country, me in one my wife in the other. But: a) the Civic is my wife's first manual trans car, and she's just barely learning to drive it... she's still very nervous and would probably be freaking out on a cross country trip especially any time we hit traffic, adverse weather, or on the drive up the Rockies or any other long steep grades, the SRT-4 runs on premium fuel only and averages 25ish mpg's on the highway, obviously that's going to be even less if the car is loaded down with as much of our belongings as we can fit in it. I'm estimating at LEAST $450 in fuel costs + synthetic oil change for that car alone ($150-200 for the Civic), vs. approximate estimates I'm getting so far of about $700 to ship it. c) somehow I have already racked up way too many miles on the SRT in a short time... nearly 8000 miles in 5 mos. Add nearly 3000 miles to that in just 3 days, and now I'm at nearly one full years worth of miles in less than half a year. That adds up to big depreciation and of course my warranty shrinking before my eyes. So the cost gap between driving it and shipping doesn't even seem to be that large when all factors are considered.... it might be worth the extra few hundred dollars to have it shipped, get the peace of mind of less miles, less worries of anything going wrong on the trip, and us being able to drive together in the same car = much more enjoyable trip. So now the issue is finding a company that will put it in a covered carrier (or can I load it on an uncovered carrier but use a regular locking car cover on it?), and get some more concrete estimates. If it gets closer to $1000 then yeah probably just gonna say screw it and drive both cars. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest 73Turbo240z Posted February 27, 2006 Share Posted February 27, 2006 i've used D.A.S. before as well... no complaints, although my driver did get sick which delayed shipment. However i will note this as well, i believe D.A.S. is a mearly a middle man, and that they sub-contract semitruck drivers... so quality control in that enviroment could be hit or miss... In my instance i drove the car onto the trailer, i don't see why they wouldn't let you, as for a car cover on your vehicles, you can try it, but if he has to shift his load around, it probally wouldn't make it back on to your car.. food for thought. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bastaad525 Posted February 27, 2006 Share Posted February 27, 2006 well the thought of getting my car back covered in dirt and trash or who knows what else is definately NOT appealing!! I did check out D.A.S.'s website... their lowest quote was about $500 for CA to VA, I drop off and pick up at their terminals. Very nice... except that is like real bottom of the barrel pricing and yeah I expect my car would show up needing a wash at the least! But the price is DEFINATELY appealing and compares VERY well to my ~$400 estimate if I drive the car myself. Now... add any options such as having the car shipped in an enclosed container, or having the car assigned to the top level of one of those dual level car haulers, and the price rockets up quickly. Add insurance and we are looking at more like $1000. Still within my budget for consideration, if I can (and probably will be able to) drop my target estimate of what I thought I was going to spend getting all our stuff shipped out to well below $1000 from my original $2500 or so estimates. I'll search around and see if I can find any other companies as well, I wish I had bookmarked one that I found yesterday that quoted me $700 for covered transport Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest norm[T12SDSUD] Posted February 27, 2006 Share Posted February 27, 2006 Hey Bastaad I think that long a trip would be MUCH MORE enjoyable alone!! haha Honey.... I don't like that music..... Honey..... I don't like that radio station...... Honey....... turn the damn music down ........ Honey...did you just fart again?? Honey.....the sun's in my eyes....... honey..... do you have to tailgate that guy? Honey....you crossed the white line again..... Honey, did you just look at the blonde's big tits in the Corvette? and on and on!!! hahaha Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bastaad525 Posted February 28, 2006 Share Posted February 28, 2006 ']Hey Bastaad I think that long a trip would be MUCH MORE enjoyable alone!! haha Honey.... I don't like that music..... Honey..... I don't like that radio station...... Honey....... turn the damn music down ........ Honey...did you just fart again?? Honey.....the sun's in my eyes....... honey..... do you have to tailgate that guy? Honey....you crossed the white line again..... Honey' date=' did you just look at the blonde's big tits in the Corvette? and on and on!!! hahaha[/quote'] nooooo not at all... my wife is actually very tolerant and actually a very fun driving companion. She has her limits, sure... and they are about 10-20mph less than I usually like to drive at but that's okay... I dont' need any more tickets that's for sure so in this case she'll get no griping from me. Overall though I have always loved driving with her, especially in my Z and now the SRT-4... she enjoys 'spirited' driving and long road trips as much as I do. We make several trips to San Diego every year (about 3 hour drive) and have always enjoyed each others company during the trip. We've also done Vegas at about 6 hours and loved that as well. We like the same kinds of music... I'm too focused of a driver when driving the SRT (same went for the Z when I drove it) to notice any Corvette drivin' blondes' tits, and she actually is as agressive a driver as me, so if some jackass is.... well... driving like a jackass, and I start to uh... 'fight back'... she actually gets a kick out of it, and laughs and grins it up when I do unto others as they have just tried to do unto me. And she's just as likely to stink up the car as I am!!! So we're both pretty forgiving on that front... I love cold air in my face anyways so am always happy for an excuse to roll the windows down if they aren't already! In all honesty I would much prefer we drove together and am still very tempted to just swallow the cost to ship one of the cars... not only because I feel we'd both enjoy the drive much more, but be cause as mentioned in my other thread, I'm terrified that left by herself she may fall asleep at the wheel.... But my... $1000 is a pretty hefty pill to swallow... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
randy 77zt Posted March 1, 2006 Share Posted March 1, 2006 bring lots of cd's or get xm or sirius-middle america has 2 kinds of music.country or western.some states are very anal about speeding.so if the locals are all doing 53 in a 55 take the hint.i wish you good luck.i co-drove a vette from orlando to sf bay area in 42 hours straight once but i will never do that again.didnt see much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bastaad525 Posted March 1, 2006 Share Posted March 1, 2006 I believe that... when I was a kid my mom and me, her sister and my cousin, packed in a car and drove from L.A. to Conneticut. We didn't see much either... lots of long stretches of highway with no sign of civilization in sight. Lots of cows... I remember that. I think we only drove thru three or four major city areas... Vegas, and I think some city in Texas, then we turned north and went thru some city in Arkansas, then it was Conneticut. That's about all I remember, and that's why I'm more fearful of my wife falling asleep at the wheel even during an 8 hour stretch of driving if she's in the car by herself. Hell... even a few years ago I flew from L.A. to Dallas and the whole damn flight all I saw was ONE populated area which from our altitude I couldn't really tell if it was a city but it didn't look that big. Otherwise it was all mountains and open nothingness. We always think of the United States as this overly crowded country but really any flight or road trip seems to show otherwise as all you tend to see are fields and mountains and mostly empty highways. All that unused space while we all pack into the big cities and complain how crowded it is.... Pretty sure now I'm just gonna say screw it and pay the $1000 to get my SRT transported in a covered carrier with insurance, using D.A.S. A lot of people have used them and as said above, had no complaints. It doesn't end up costing THAT much more that driving both cars... Figuring $300-400 for 2700 miles of premium gas, and an extra few days of hotel stays at $150-200 (total), plus buying walkie talkies... hell even the extra few days of food and what not while we're on the road, and again of course the added wear and tear and depreciation of my new baby . Doesn't quite add up to the cost of shipping but the difference is enough that I think I'll pay it just for the added peace of mind and a much more enjoyable, and shorter, trip. But yeah it's gonna have to be a covered carrier or at the least, the extra amount they ask to guarantee it gets loaded on top of the open carrier, so I dont get it back a mess. What do you guys think? Covered or top load? and do you recommend I also pay the extra $150 for the 'valuation' which I guess is just a fancy way of saying 'insurance'... up to $50,000 with $100 deductible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tannji Posted March 1, 2006 Share Posted March 1, 2006 I just ran across an old gaming buddy who has been out of touch for a couple years... and he is now single and driving a truck/trailor car transport for a living. He normally goes through a broker, but also accepts direct jobs. He just quoted me very reasonably for an Iowa to New Mexico move, and might be very competitive if you are only shipping the car. I am not sure if his 35 footer is covered or open bed, will ask. PM me if you want an estimate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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