Why Working With Auto Transport Brokers is Always Better
You hear it all the time: “auto transport is full of scammers.” “Auto transport is a shady industry.” “I had a brother that shipped his car, they really screwed him!” I’ve heard these statements more times than I care to admit, mostly from customers fed up with their old auto transport company and looking to find a new one, a better one.
And then there’s the people that don’t even do that; they just complain for ten minutes over the phone, then say “well I’m just going to go with a carrier directly,” or “why not just skip the middleman?” or something like that. My response is always the same: “Good luck finding them.”
There’s a reason why the auto transportation industry works the way it does: it may not be perfect, but it’s probably the best that it’s going to be. If you’ve read anything about the industry you’ll understand that most of the advice you read online is geared toward setting you up with a broker to handle the shipment of your vehicle. This is by far the BEST method of booking your shipment, and in this blog I’ll explain more about why and how brokers actually benefit you in the long run.
For starters, brokers are the go-to in the industry because they’re the easiest to find. Whether you book with us or someone else, brokers are the companies that you see first and foremost. Why? Well, the main reason why brokers are a dime a dozen is because they don’t physically move your vehicle; the carriers do that, and they spend all their time driving, not working on their advertising campaigns or figuring out new ways to appeal to customers.
Carriers rely on brokers to do that, to find them new loads, so why would they want to sink money into advertising online when a) brokers do that anyway and b) they can simply call the brokers looking for loads? Brokers are not just customers’ go-to; they’re also a carrier’s.
You can find carrier companies directly online, but they’re usually buried under pages and pages of search results that score higher than they do. Their websites are usually old, if they have one at all, and you’re lucky if they have a quote form on their site at all (most don’t).
The job of an auto transport broker is to find you a carrier – and to find customers for carriers. They’re a vital part of the industry for this reason alone. Let me put it this way: if you were to book directly with a carrier company that has, say, a fleet of five trucks, your pickup date could be anywhere from a week to two weeks or even more depending on where their nearest truck is at.
It also depends on how full those trucks are – you could possibly be waiting months for a pickup, if they are a busy carrier company. Factor in as well the fact that most auto transport carriers only service specific routes (Boston to Miami, New York to Chicago, Los Angeles to Seattle, etc), and your search just got a whole lot harder.
Now, imagine having someone who’s sole job it is to wade through all those different companies and find one that is not only near you (or will be near you soon), but also has room on their truck for your vehicle AND runs routes along the route that you just happen to need transportation services along. Wouldn’t that be convenient? Those types of people exist – they’re called auto transport brokers.
You get your horror stories in every industry – seriously, the best interior painters in the United States probably have bad reviews. You can’t satisfy everyone, but you CAN do the best job you can and understand that sometimes things just don’t work out.
We ran a piece a while back called the “auto transport broker horror story” – it’s an insightful post about different problems people have with brokers. But those people are few and far between, unless they get shacked up with a bad company from the get go. Doing your homework on the broker you choose is important too.
Not to toot our own horn here (well, maybe a little), but we are a top-rated auto transport broker who has decades of experience in the industry. You can fill out our free online quote form and get a free quote to ship any vehicle right away. Or, you can call us toll-free at 800-930-7417 to speak to a live agent. They can give you a quote over the phone, answer questions about shipping vehicles, and also book your shipment if you’re ready to place a reservation.
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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