I wrote off enclosed transport for years until my brother's Miata came back with a cracked windshield
My brother shipped his 1994 Miata from Phoenix to Seattle last month on an open carrier to save about $400, and it showed up with a cracked windshield and a nice layer of desert dust baked into the paint. I always figured enclosed shipping was a waste of money for anything that wasn't a show car, but when he filed the claim they told him the windshield alone was $380 installed and the carrier argued it was pre-existing. Open carriers run 8 to 10 cars per load and yours sits wherever it fits, usually behind a semi throwing rocks for 1,400 miles. My brother ended up out $380 plus two weeks of back and forth calls, which is basically the price difference he was trying to save. Has anyone actually gotten a carrier to pay out on an open transport damage claim without dragging it out for months?
A 1994 Miata windshield is not $380 installed, that number is way off for that car unless you're at a dealer getting bent over. Aftermarket glass for an NA Miata runs like $150 to $200 installed at a normal shop, sometimes less if you call around. So the carrier's payout math might actually be working against him for the wrong reason. The real problem is them claiming it was pre-existing, which is what most of these carriers do because the burden falls on you to prove it wasn't. Your brother should've done a walk around video with the driver at pickup, that's the one thing that wins these claims most of the time. Without pics from before it left Phoenix, he's pretty much stuck eating it.