Why You Can’t Get a Deal When Shipping Your Car

Auto transport is not like most other businesses. The main difference being that you go through a broker to obtain the service you require. Basically you need a middleman, for info on why check out my post on why you need a broker. Because you book through a broker you cannot get a guaranteed price or guaranteed dates. Brokers give you estimates, estimates on price and estimates on when they think your car will get picked up.

So you can start to see where the problem with trying to get a good deal comes in. All of those quotes you get are not guaranteed, they are only estimates. The truth is no matter which broker you ship with the main fee (the carrier fee) will be the same. The only real differences in brokers is their broker fee and the service after your car is picked up.

How can this be possible? Because all brokers contact the same carriers. There may be one or two carriers that certain brokers know that others don’t, but for the most part no matter which broker you book with they will be contacting the same carriers and most likely your broker choice won’t affect which carrier ships your car.

This is common knowledge within the auto transport industry but, unfortunately, for people shipping their car for the first time, they are caught completely off guard. One of the biggest problems in auto transport today is that many companies under-quote first time shippers. They are lured in by the low price without realizing that the price will just be raised later on. Furthermore the companies that do the under-quoting are often involved in other shady business practices. This is one of the main reasons auto transport has such a bad reputation.

It is, however, very easy to stay away from those companies. Beware of super low quotes. Beware of companies that don’t make it clear if they are a broker or a carrier. Beware of companies that don’t pick up the phones or call you back. Use common sense.

The easiest way to stay away from companies you don’t want to get involved with, ship with MIG!