What is Luxury Car Shipping?

When it comes to something like transporting your vehicle, the specifics sometimes get stressful.  This is especially true when it comes to luxury cars.  Whether you’re moving, selling a vehicle, or even purchasing one, it’s best to know how to transport it safely and effectively.

Of course, this raises the question – how does this process actually work?  What are the specifics that we need to know about?  You can find some examples of it on this page: https://rep.bntu.by/bitstream/handle/data/45665/How_to_Ship_a_Car_Easily_and_Affordably.pdf, but we’ll be covering it in detail as well!

After all, when dealing with something precious, like a luxury car, it’s not exactly a secret that we should do our best to ensure that we can ship it without causing any damage. Additionally, it makes sense to want to find the best method of shipping. Make sure to stick around if you want to learn about that.

What is Car Shipping?

Naturally, our first order of business is to examine what this process is. For our purposes, we’ll define it as follows: Car shipping, also known as auto transport, is the process of moving a vehicle from one location to another.

This can be needed for a variety of reasons, such as moving to a new location, buying or selling a car online, or transporting a vehicle to a vacation destination, as we briefly touched upon earlier. With that covered, we can delve into some of the specifics.

Types of Transport

Something that you’ll need to keep in mind is that there are a few different options as far as the transport itself goes.  It’s worth learning about all of them, in order to make a firm decision about your luxury car shipping in the future. 

Open Transport: This is probably the most common, and most popular, method of transport for a vehicle. Essentially, it’s where vehicles are loaded onto an open-air trailer and then transported to their destination. While this method is more affordable, your vehicle may be exposed to the elements and road debris during transit, so it may not be something to pursue with a luxury car.

Enclosed Transport: As you can probably guess, this is the opposite of the previous method. Thus, this method involves shipping your vehicle in a closed trailer, which provides far more protection from the elements and road hazards. Of course, the downside is that enclosed transport is typically more expensive than open transport, but it still offers increased security and peace of mind.

Now, something else you’ll need to think about is how you want to handle the pickup and drop-off process. There are two primary methods that can be helpful to learn about.

Door to Door Transport: With this option, the auto transport company will pick up your vehicle from your location and deliver it directly to your desired destination.  As you can imagine, this is convenient but may come at a higher cost than terminal-to-terminal shipping, which is the other type we’ll be covering.  Just keep in mind that there are different ways to prepare for each of them as well.

Terminal to Terminal Transport: This is, as we hinted at above, the least expensive option of these two.  In this method, you drop off your vehicle at your chosen terminal, where it will then get loaded onto a carrier and transported to another terminal location that’s near your destination.  Naturally, you will then have to pick up your vehicle from that spot.  While it’s less expensive, you’ll have to contend with arranging other transportation.

How it Works

Now that we’ve covered some of these things in more depth, let’s also consider how the process works on a general level.  Some of this is covered on this page, so check that out if you end up with further questions. 

What all is there to think about, then?  Well, when you’re deciding to ship a luxury car, it is important to research and select a reputable auto transport company that is fully licensed, insured, and bonded.  Ideally, they’ll have plenty of evidence of this on their website, but you can look them up separately as well.

You should also consider factors such as cost, shipping time, and the company’s reputation for reliability and customer service.  Read reviews online, and don’t forget that you can ask friends and family members who’ve transported vehicles about their opinions as well.

Of course, some of the decisions will likely be based on the reason for the shipping in the first place. For instance, if you’re selling a vehicle, you probably won’t want to do door-to-door shipping unless your customer specifically requests that. Meanwhile, if you’re doing it for a move or a vacation, that might be preferable to the terminal-to-terminal option. Flexibility is quite important, too, at the end of the day.