How Long Can it Take to Ship My Car?

The total time it takes to ship a car depends on several factors and no one can give you a precise date or time mainly because there are many moving parts. Sometimes the car arrives ahead of schedule while the other times, it may take 2-3 days longer. To know what factors can affect car shipping times, read the guide till the end:

Total Distance:

One of the main factors that decide the amount of time it is going to take to ship a car from pickup to drop off point is the total distance. Long-distance shipping of across 2000 to 3000 kilometers will obviously take longer than a short distance of a few hundred kilometers.

Longer distance doesn’t just account for the time the truck spends on the road. Since the whole transportation process will span across several days, the trucker will have to find a place to spend the nights and to eat. These things will further add to the time it takes to deliver a car.

Type of Service:

Car transport duration also depends on the type of service you get. There are two types of services; Terminal-to-terminal and the second one is door-to-door transport. Getting the former one means the time it takes to deliver the car will be shorter.

However, if you go for the latter one, your car will have to be picked up from your home, taken to the company’s carrier and then from there’ transported to its final destination. It is a more convenient transportation mode but it will take longer to ship a car as well.

Mode of Transportation:

This is another factor that completely changes the course of your car transport. There are three modes of transportation; land, air and sea. The first one is the most common mode and perhaps the most time consuming as well. Air transport is the fastest and your car can reach its destination in a few days; sometimes even on the same day.

Sea transportation sometimes takes longer and sometimes is faster depending on sea route to the destination. However, land transport is the cheapest and air transport is the most expensive.

Weather Conditions:

This is also a major bummer for people who want to get their car shipped fast during peak weather conditions. If it’s raining hard like cats and dogs or if there is a snowstorm, then it will most probably take longer for the carrier to get your car to its destination.

Since your vehicle’s protection is the first priority of the carrier, he will take decisions based on how safe it is to travel further. If the weather gets worse during the transit, he might have to take a pause and stop at a motel. Depending on how long the weather stretches, the delivery can be delayed as well.

Time of the Year:

Different times of the year have different car shipping costs as well as car delivery times. In autumn, the cost to ship a car is the lowest and delivery is fastest because the car transport industry is slow during this time. However, in winters and summers, people travel around the country so they take their cars with them as well.

This not only increases the prices but because of a lack of carriers to ship the cars, major delays can be faced. So it will take longer to ship a car during peak seasons than usual.

Over to You:

The reason behind telling you all of these factors is that no one can calculate the exact time to ship a car from one place to another.

Auto shipping companies can only estimate transit durations and you should add a window of 2-4 days in your plans to avoid any unpleasant experience.