Anyone ever shipped one?

I live in CO and found my Prius in Houston. After hearing several horror stories about Auto transport brokers, I decided to fly down and drive it back. (1,250 miles). I would ship it but only if the dealer uses a shipper he knows and reccommends.

 

1. They quote you $500, you pay, when the car is 100 miles away they call insisting on another $500.
2. You pay,two months later, no car.

 

Steve,

I am in Houston and found my car in California. So I'm about to fly out to CA and drive 1300 miles back to Houston. Do you have any advice for driving the Prius such a long distance in such a short time period. I.E. how did you break it in? Did you get an oil change during the trip?

Thanks

 

If you are going to have your car shipped, make sure you are using a reputable car transport service. Mabro is one such company. Fleet Car is another. They are larger auto transporters, and do haul privately owned vehicles (POVs). If you are getting what sounds like lowball prices, then you are likely getting scammed. Rates back when I drove was a buck a mile. Know your distance to have an idea of what you should be paying.

I don't know if they are still around or not, but I wouldn't haul a Yugo with Guylee Auto Transport. I used to work for them. Their equipment had no business being on the US highway system.

 

My Prius had 600+ miles on it when I picked it up so I wasn't worried about breaking it in. We just drove at 75-80 when we could and at 60-65 when we couldn't. I wasn't worried about a defect because it was the dealer demo for a few months and my newphew picked it up a few days before I arrived and used it around Houston.
We had no problems until we reached Denver in a huge blizzard so I bought Bizzack snow tires in Denver instead of Aspen. We did have power problems going over the passes which I discussed in another topic of this group as recently as today.
It's a real nice car to drive especially if you have cruise and a CD player.
Some owners have complained about the gas guage accuracy. You might want to carry a 2 gallon gas can with you or just fill up at 3/10 to be safe.

 

I'm planning to have mine shipped from Laramie, WY to San Francisco. Estimates have run from $500 - $1,000. Hard to tell who is reputable and who isn't. I mainly got the estimates as a sanity check and will ultimately let the dealer decide who to ship with, hoping they have a reputable carrier they know. I figure the risks are low. If something bad happens the car is insured by the carrier and my own insurance. Of course, I would be very sad, but I'm torn about whether driving 1200 miles right out of the gate, non-stop, is a smart thing to do.

Thoughts?

 

I've driven that run before and it is pretty desolate for most of the way (I-80) and it is nowhere you'd want the car to crap out. If it was me I'd have it shipped and avoid the stress.

My 2 cents.

 

If I remember correctly, for many years after WW II there used to be a lot of people placing ads in newspapers offering to drive cars to certain places for free. They got their transportation that way. Don't see many ads like that nowadays, but the practice went on for a long time. Whatshisname 8)

 

Okay, don't go by me yet, because my car is still en route, but I used 1st Choice Auto Shippers and so far, they've been great. (Please if anyone has had a bad experience with them, save it for a few more days until my car gets here or I'll completely panic.) They let me change the pickup day about three times and when it was finally set in stone, they dispatched within three days. They gave me proof of insurance in writing, the driver's name and cell phone number, and a delivery estimate (Sunday). Hopefully it'll get here on time and at the rate promised ($1,040 from Montana to Florida - lowest rate I got, hope I didn't do myself a disservice by taking the lowball.)