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Can My Car Be Shipped If It Has Things in It?

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Home  |  Car Shipping • Vehicle Shipping   |   Can My Car Be Shipped If It Has Things in It?

You’ve chosen a carrier to move your vehicle from point A to point B, and you’ve signed the dotted line. The next question is, can your car be shipped if it has your personal belongings in it? Some carriers will tell you yes, while others will insist on ‘no.’ In this article, we’ll reveal an important transport shipping law, and how you can turn your vehicle transport a smooth, easy and damage-free experience.   

The Answer is…

While many people still pack their vehicle with personal items and many carriers accept items packed in the vehicle, the official answer is no. You can’t place items in your vehicle because there aren’t any carriers or brokers licensed to transport a vehicle with items in it.  However, this doesn’t mean you can’t pack items in your car. Some carriers will still allow it, with limitations, and often with an extra fee attached.  If you choose to pack your vehicle with personal items, the general rule of thumb is to limit the total weight amount to 100 pounds or less.

What to Expect When You Choose Ship A Car Direct

When you choose Ship A Car Direct as your car transport broker, you’ll have the peace of mind of a BBB accredited company that has been trusted and loved by customers all over the country. We are not licensed to ship household items, so we cannot transport them over state lines. However, you can pack anything else in your car beside household goods. You can learn more about our license from the Department of Transportation, as well as other transport companies’ licenses. After clicking on the following link, enter 632461 in the field next to MC: https://li-public.fmcsa.dot.gov/LIVIEW/pkg_carrquery.prc_carrlist

Ship A Car Direct is a unique car shipping company because of our screening process, and our damage-free guarantee. Unlike many other brokers who work with any available carrier, we offer our customers a selective screening process for carriers that meet their service and quality needs. We review over 7,500 carriers and weed out those who don’t make the cut. Our damage-free insurance guarantee that should your vehicle occur damage, it’ll be covered. If they don’t, we’ll come in and help pay for the damage.  Contact us today at 1-866-221-1664 to learn more!

Frequently Asked Questions

Honest Answers to Your Car Shipping Questions

Yes, we always ask for your specific pickup and delivery addresses, if the carrier can get right to the addresses you provide, they will. If the addresses that you give us are not safely accessible for a Multi-car carrier, however, you will need to make arrangements with the driver to meet at a nearby location where the carrier can safely get in and out.

People do it all the time (rarely for free) but the official answer is no.

Not what you wanted to hear, we know, but that is the honest answer.

We are not licensed to broker the shipment of household goods and, likewise, no car carrier that operates in the USA is licensed to transport them from state to state either. Despite what you might be being told by other car shipping companies you may speak with.

Remember, at the end of the day we're all salespeople, and the true answer to this question is not a great selling point.

You will hear a lot of companies tell you that you can put up to 100 pounds of items in the trunk, but that is not entirely true. That fact is that items of that amount are fairly common and the department of transportation is probably not going to split hairs and fine the trucker over items of that amount, provided they are not over their weight limit. They could fine them, however, if they see a vehicle stuffed full of personal items so the car carrier will most likely try to negotiate something with you to cover themselves against any costs they could incur. It's not something we can build into your contract though.

We have a short and helpful video on this topic in our user videos.

Only in rare cases and car carriers will usually charge a premium to make it happen.

All dates given by car carriers are typically estimates and projections.

For this reason (and to keep your cost down) we ask that you build in some flexibility and give us the earliest possible date you would be WILLING to release the vehicle, even though it may not be your preferred date.

We'll put you in direct contact with your car carrier and the driver will also typically call you the afternoon or evening before your pick up and delivery (they won't just show up unannounced, and if they do we want to hear about it). However, car carriers are out on the road battling traffic, weather and any number of other factors that can and do throw them off of their pickup and delivery projections from time to time.

If the projected dates we give you come and you are unable to make contact with your carrier, please call our office immediately so that we may help resolve the situation.

The average transit time from pick up to delivery on any vehicle going coast to coast will average 7 to 10 days. From there you can figure your transit time based on how far your vehicle is traveling, i.e. from either coast to the Midwest might average 3-7 days.

Yes!

Even better, we do not even ask for payment until we have you confirmed for pickup by a safe, reliable, fully insured, direct car carrier. If for any reason you do not ship your car with the carrier that we arrange for you, there is no fee.

The fees paid directly to the carrier however, (in most cases, their fees are not paid until your vehicle is delivered) are not directly controlled by us, so any requests for a refund of the carrier's portion would need to be addressed with the carrier directly.

Of course! And you are always backed by our Damage Free Guarantee policy.

Part of what you pay us for is to verify that the car carrier that we put you on is covered by the proper amount of insurance and that everything is up to date.

There is never any additional cost to you for this coverage, and their insurance is always primary.

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