My friend rear ended an SUV with his car and he's selling it to me cheap so I can fix it up and get it on the road again. It drives fine according to him, but I just don't feel like driving it across the country.

Does anyone have any experience with shipping cars? I've gotten quotes, but all the companies are brokers and I'm not sure who to go with or who to trust.

These guys are recommended by ebay motors:
http://www.dasautoshippers.com/

They run their own fleet.

I found this web site and I'm getting decent information from reading the reviews.
http://www.transportreviews.com/

DAS has a handful of negative reviews from the past few weeks so I think I'll steer clear of them.

I use DAS daily in my job. 98% of the time they do a good job. They are far cheaper than other carriers. If you go to their website you can get quotes. There are a lot of different services so you could probably make the relocation cheaper if you pick the vehicle up at their terminal and such. The vehicle has to run, steer and have a working parking brake. Watch for added charges like fuel surcharge. It can be a lot. Make sure you know ALL your charges before you use anybody.

Shipping a vehicle is VERY expensive.

Yeah, I was in a conversation with one of the brokers that gave me some tips on what to look for. He said I'll pay right around $1000 for an open carrier to ship the car, no matter what anyone says. He also said to avoid any company that wants a deposit. I might try out DAS and get a quote just to see what they say.

Do not go with DAS. They picked up my car and took it to a terminal where it sat there for two weeks before it was picked up by a car hauler. The whole transport took 3 weeks from new york to california, when it should of been no more than 10 days. I learned my lesson the hard way, and shopped around on transportreviews.com for the return trip. I ended up going with autoline transport and even though they brokered out my shipment, their customer service was excellent, and the driver they picked was also very good. Overall, it was a much better experience. Anyway, good luck.

Here is their site if you need more information.
http://autolinetransport.com/

Someone on another forum just recommended AutoLine as well. I'll check out their reviews and send them an email.

I ship about 400 cars a year in my job. Believe me....they ALL have a bad relocation every once in a while.

2 other carriers I use that are very good are ReloTrans and TNT. If cost is no object to you, get a quote from those 2. They are just brokers.

I wasn't able to find ReloTrans, are you abbreviating that? There are a few listings under TNT, do you mean this place: http://www.tnt-inc.com/ ?

Yes, and here is a link to ReloTrans.

http://relotrans.com/

Both are good companies. I don't know if the people I deal with are corporate only, but at TNT I deal with Robin and at ReloTrans I deal with Karen Nataline.

If you'd like me to use your name as a referral for ReloTrans send me a PM.

I have done shipping with transportmyautomobile.com where i relocated florida to dallas. I shipped it for a affordable price and got the vehicle in same condition.

A lot of the options out there are going to be brokers, even if they do ship vehicles themselves. From what I understand, some shippers do broker out some of the work they can't do themselves so it's not entirely out of the ordinary and it seems to be the industry norm. I've used a company called A-1 Auto Transport to ship a nonrunning car (which costs slightly more btw) and didn't have any problems. They were also cheaper than many of the others I was considering at the time. If you're shipping across the country, however, that won't be cheap no matter who you use so I'd get an estimate so you have an idea of how much it will likely cost. In my experience, you'll get a pretty wide assortment of quotes so it's smart to do some comparing. I used the scatter shot approach and contacted around ten companies before deciding. I'm glad I went with the one I did.

Hello Y'all I need to get my 240sx shipped from Chicago to Fort Lauderdale Florida next week. Has anyone shipped a car before? Would you go on an open hauler or enclosed? I went online and got a million calls from brokers which it seems the industry works this way 95% were all brokers who called me and I found 1 company with there own trucks, National Car Shipping is the name of the company and they seemed very good.

Any recommendations before I pull the trigger with this carrier?