Why Does Auto Transport Delivery Take So Long?
The car shipping industry is constantly moving. Whether it’s a broker’s office fielding calls and connecting with customers or a carrier on the road trekking from city to city, auto transport companies always have something to do. But then why does auto transport delivery take so long? Well, there are a few well-established reasons as to why, and we’re going to be covering the most common ones here. Typically, car transporters take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks to get from pickup to delivery, and that heavily depends on where you’re shipping from or to. Naturally, shorter routes take less time, while coast-to-coast shipments can take anywhere from ten days to three weeks.
Most of the time the reason why auto transport delivery can take so long is fairly straightforward – in order to make enough money to keep their trucks fueled, carriers have to stagger their pickups and deliveries, often stopping in multiple places in a day. Most carriers on the road get paid when they deliver a vehicle, and not a moment before; therefore, it’s actually in their best interest to complete loads in a timely manner. However, they can’t get paid for vehicles they don’t ship, so they have to stop to pick up vehicles when they have open space on their truck. Open space is money lost, and to avoid the deadhead they often have crazy schedules that they somehow manage to juggle, often thanks to a dispatcher in a small office back home.
Not only that, but carriers can only drive for so long, and only so far, in a given day. Most carriers can average 350 miles on a good day, and 400 on a great one, but 300 is typically the metric that we use to estimate delivery times. You can do this too – look at the distance from your pickup to your delivery location and simply divide the number by 300. So, if your delivery location is 1,500 miles away, it will take about five days to get your vehicle. Therefore, cross-country shipments will take ten days, but sometimes things happen while on the road. Traffic can kill hours for a carrier, and that’s money lost, so they go as fast as they can. But you have to account for delays when trying to figure out your auto transport delivery time, and you can learn more about that by speaking to one of our auto shipping agents.
If you are interested in shipping a vehicle and are trying to get some quotes to get you started, take a minute or two and fill out our free online auto shipping quote request form. If you do, you’ll receive multiple free quotes in your email inbox within the hour, with the first showing up mere minutes after submitting your information. Your quotes will come from only top-rated car transporters, which means that you will be in good hands from start to finish. We make sure each company is fully licensed and bonded, and also that they only work with top carriers on the road. If you have questions about our services, the information in this post, or would like some help getting your quotes, understanding more about auto transport delivery windows or understanding more about how the vehicle shipping industry works, you can contact one of our agents any time at 800-930-7417.
Since 2007 Dave has written all the content and blogs for American Auto Shipping and during this time added the duties of customer support and transport logistics.
He currently resides in Washington with his three kids and their mom and cat. A fan of Marvel movies and good stories, when not shipping cars Dave can be found working on his novel, enjoying a good book or playing some tournament HALO.
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