Used to pay for enclosed shipping every time, now I don't

After my last car got delivered with a tiny scratch inside the open trailer, I figured it was fine for local trips under 500 miles. My buddy showed me his car came from Texas to Ohio without a single mark on an open hauler for $600 less, so I gave it a shot last month and it worked out perfect.

3 comments

3 Comments

brown.gavin1mo ago

That Texas to Ohio run is almost a thousand miles, not 500... you can't just say "local" and lump that in. I've seen plenty of cars come off open trailers with paint chips from road debris, especially on longer hauls. A buddy of mine had a brand new Mustang delivered from Florida to Pennsylvania on an open carrier and it showed up with a dent in the quarter panel from a flying rock. He saved $500 on shipping but it cost him $1,200 to fix the bodywork. I'm not saying it always goes wrong, but you got lucky once and now you think it's a guarantee... that's how people end up with regrets.

nathanj5629d ago

Honestly, people keep arguing about open vs enclosed but nobody's talking about the driver. The guy hauling your car might be running on 4 hours of sleep and stopping for gas at some sketchy lot where a forklift is unloading pallets next to your Mustang. I've seen it happen. The real risk isn't just rocks on the highway, it's the whole chain of custody. That open trailer could get parked overnight in a Walmart lot with zero security. Meanwhile your "lucky" story might've been more about the driver being careful and less about the type of trailer.

allen.ivan29d ago

Wait, is your buddy's $500 savings really the standard though? I've had three cars moved long distance on open trailers and never got a single chip or dent, and that's with one sitting on the bottom rack next to a pickup that looked like it survived a war zone. Maybe I'm just stupid lucky, but I think the horror stories get way more attention than the thousands of boring, problem-free open hauls that happen every day.