Our Two Prius Primes Have Arrived

No Primes in TX so we took advantage of the NJ $3,500 incentive and had a pair shipped to TX. They have arrived. The Blue Prime Plus is for my wife and the gray Prime Premium is for my daughter (replacing a 2006 and 2004 Prius). I still drive my 2007 Prius.

Prius_Primes-001 by enerjazz posted Dec 24, 2017 at 12:48 PM

Prius_Primes-004 by enerjazz posted Dec 24, 2017 at 12:48 PM

 

We're in Fairview just north of you. My daughter is near downtown Dallas.

I posted the pics in a Priuschat album and it's set to public, so they should be visible. Here they are on a web link:

 

I posted all the cost info in the official prices paid thread. Here are some car shipping tips if anyone is thinking about buying from out of state and shipping a vehicle. I filled out a couple of the online shipping quote request sites and was bombarded with emails, calls, and texts. Some even kept pestering me days later until I blocked their numbers.

The folks you'll deal with are a broker. They give the quotes, then try to find a truck to move the vehicles.

From all the initial contacts I made a list, sorted by price, and started to check the BBB and other review sites. Some of them were eliminated quickly due to poor ratings and reviews. I finally settled on Iron Auto Transport (Davie, FL). Iron is only 2 years old and just had a few reviews, but they were positive. When I talked with Aaron on the phone he was the most informative and least pushy of anyone I had spoken with. He also had the best price. No money down until he booked a truck. When he had someone booked he emailed with the trucking company info, the driver's name, and driver cell phone. I put down about 20% on a credit card and the rest was due on delivery.

I spoke to the driver not long after he picked up the cars and again a few hours before he arrived. The cars were in fine shape and the driver was thankful that I sent him to a local elementary school with a large parking lot instead of trying to navigate our narrow residential streets. Overall a good shipping experience. The trucking company he booked was Global Express and Misha was my driver. Very nice guy.

 

I would like to, but I'll wait my turn. My daughter had my original 2004 - now 13 1/2 years old, so she was patient. My wife's 2006 is about to turn 12 and she has 200,000 miles. My 2007 only has 105,000 miles and is in great shape. We went ahead and jumped on the pair in early Dec when it looked like the tax credit might be in trouble.

Now I've got to clean up the 2004 and 2006 and get them listed for sale.

 

It was OK. I started with many dealers and narrowed it down pretty fast. The final few were all good - I much prefer negotiating via email than in person. Getting to a price agreement was straightforward. It takes some time to send the paperwork back and forth but we got there. The couple of issues were: 1. The dealer didn't get the temp plates on the cars before they shipped. 2. They didn't send me a title - I had to call and get them to overnight it so I could register the cars in TX (which had arrived without their temp plates).

The shipping was fine. Iron Auto did a good job and I got a good/communicative driver who delivered them without incident.

Some dealers said they had to register the vehicles for me (for a small fee) and others said they would just ship them with temp plates.

Bottom line - we got what we wanted and we got great deals.