The Best Ways to Transport a Car

If you’re selling a large and bulky asset, like a car, then you’ll need to contend with the complexities involved in shipping it. Whether you’re buying a new car, selling your old one, or looking to get a classic professionally repaired, there are several options available when it comes to transport.

Let’s consider a few of them.

Drive it yourself

One of the major advantages of a car, of course, is the fact that they are their own form of transport. Often, the easiest way to get a car from one place to another is to get behind the wheel and drive it there.

If you’re selling a vehicle for which you’re insured, you can simply pull up at the buyer’s property, or some other prearranged spot. 

If you’re buying a vehicle, then one factor you’ll need to consider is insurance for the ride home. The solution here is to take out day insurance to cover you temporarily. This way, you won’t be saddled with the upfront cost of paying for the entire year, and you’ll have the time you need to arrange a long-term solution.

This works just as well if you aren’t picking up the vehicle in person, but having a friend or family member do the honours for you. If you intend to test-drive the car before agreeing to the purchase, then temporary insurance is a necessity.

Professional driver service

What if you’d like to transport a car a realtively long distance? Rather than doing the work yourself, you can simply hire a professional driver to do the actual driving for you. If you’ve ever seen a red-and-white registration plate (called‘trade plates’) displayed over the top of the actual registration plate, then you’ve seen a car being driven by one of these professionals. 

You’ll have additional miles on the clock, and the car will need an MOT – but road tax and registration fees are not a problem.

Open car transport

Moving a car from one side of the country to the other can also involve putting it onto the back of an open lorry trailer. This is a great way of lowering costs (and carbon emissions) since it allows for several cars to be moved all at once. 

There’s a minor risk of damage, here, since vehicles need to be quickly unloaded and loaded, and they’re exposed to the weather during transit. If you’re shipping a very expensive car, this might not be an ideal solution.

Closed car transport

You can think of closed-car transport as functionally identical to the open-car sort, except that the vehicle is usually loaded onto a transport all on its own, and benefits from an enclosure which guards against damage. You’ll pay more, but you’ll incur less risk. It’s the go-to choice for classic cars.