For US academics: moving your car separately from you for sabbatical

[Velvet Elvis]

Greetings.  I was an old participant (like AGES ago) on the CHE forums.  Glad to find these.

Has anyone here had good or bad experiences with drive-away or car transport services in the US?

I'm doing a temporary sabbatical move in summer 2024, from east coast US to west coast US.  My plan is to fly and have my car transported or driven with some stuff in it.

Thanks for any recommendations you might have.

[Hegemony]

I used to do driveaway, I mean I drove the cars for people. All good. I also used it to have someone else drive a car from the midwest to the West Coast for me. It all worked fine except they told the guy the wrong city. But we cleared that up pretty fast. Again it worked fine. I didn't have any valuable stuff in the car so I can't speak to that aspect of it.

[Sun_Worshiper]

I hired a company to transport my car across the country about eight years ago. It took about two weeks and I had to rent a car in the meantime - which my department covered. It cost a few thousand dollars, I think. No complaints.

[jerseyjay]

Twice over the last decade I've had a car transported by truck from the Southwest to the Northeast. I have had no major problems.

Some things to keep in mind: many of these are individual contractors and they leave when they get enough cars and they make stops along the way. This means that often the delivery is an estimate. Also, since I live in the urban Northeast, it was difficult to find somebody who was willing to come out here. (Evidently, there is a major shortage of truck parking in New Jersey, for example, which makes it difficult.)

One time when I had a car transported across the country, it was my father's old car. When he bought a new car, he negotiated the transport of the old car with the people who did the dealership's cars and it was much cheaper than just contracting somebody to do it.

Make sure you check the car carefully when you get it, since that is your chance to claim any damage.

[Velvet Elvis]

Thanks everyone!  Keep the stories coming and if you have recommendations for specific companies (or against) please let me know.