Hi, does anyone have any suggestions as to how to obtain the cheapest shipping rates to transport a car? Most often i find leases outside of Florida that are much better than what i can find locally but shipping is high if i use a broker like uship.com.
I was wondering if anybody has any experience/tips how to transport a car more cost effectively?
I think your dealer can help you, and often will share the cost to close the deal.
But we aware of āgooglingā car transport and then putting in an inquiry. If you do so, youāll get bombarded with 20 calls a day for about a week.
Iāve bought two cars out of state on great deals and the cost of shipping was offset by bigger savings.
@Alfanut if the dealer has room to offset some of the shipping cost then i didnāt negotiate hard enough 
I need to find my own cost effective shipping. Also some of the dealers Iāve spoken with donāt get any better rates.
Summary up front: dealers will get a better shipping rate than you or I will.
I just went through this Monday and I started by searching for āauto shipping quoteā and remembered from last time itās typically a bidding process based on distance and urgency. If you have a huge window of time, you can save a lot of money. To make a long story short, the lowest quote for my situation was $450 for 1-week delivery (also shipping to FL) but I was able to get the dealer to ship it for $325.
Hope it helps - ask the dealer!
This looks like the only option for me because West Coast dealers wonāt play ball. Last time I asked it was about $1,500 because I need to do two way ship. Send my trade-in to the dealer and then ship the new car back.
California to Maryland and Maryland back to California.
Unfortunately I need my car for work, both jobs (the other being Uber) but I have two options available to me which includes driving my friendās S class (2014) for Uber Black until my car get here or even beyond that to save the mileage.
@Anthony_Thomas are you saying that you are paying $1500 in shipping to buy from a Maryland dealer and itās still worth doing?
Have you found that the dealer gets you better shipping rates than you can find yourself?
I would have to pay about that, $750 both ways. The dealer because thereās no deal hasnāt looked into it. I canāt do anything until possible late July now, so it will have to wait. The dealer might and likely can arrange shipping for less since they have shipped cars before.
As for itās still worth doing, YES!
ST3 Focus ST loaded (everything) = $25,366 after Ford $1,500 cash back ($1,000 Smart Cash, $500 Cash Rebate),$26,866 before rebates or $4849 off, $3,000+ below invoice. RCL Cash drops it another $1,500 ($3,000) to $23,866. A $31,715 car for $23,866, doesnāt take rocket science to figure that out.
Some dealers wonāt even sell you a base ST for that muchā¦($25,300 zero options)
You can get similar ridiculous prices on VW GTIās, Waldorf VW in Maryland as well, you can get base no option GTI-S (2016) for less than $21,000.
The only way I would get a California, Oregon or Washington dealer to give that kind of discount is if they needed to desperately sell a car in order to meet some yearly or quarterly sales goal to qualify for a bonus.
The challenge is to find that dealer and it varies from month to month. Galpin claims to be the #1 Volume Ford dealer in the US. I might be able to get them to play, but thatās one of the reasons I am waiting until July, in previous experience if you had any credit difficulties that was their justification to keep the price at MSRP and only drop it as necessary to get Ford Credit to pick it up.
But with my credit problems coming to an end, I will have the leverage. Threatening them with going across the country might work. The savings is staggering though, nearly $8,000 in discounts and cash. You usually only see numbers like that with luxury cars.
Itās only minor to spend $1,500 and be without a car for a week or so. But as I said, I have two solutions to that problem. Drive my friendās S Class around for Uber Black or get into Uberās Xchange Lease an get a '16 Honda Civic LX for a month.
@Anthony_Thomas FL is also not very competitive and iāve gotten cars as far away as New England and it was still worth it, i agree with you. I just couldnāt imagine coast to coast shipping to be worth it but it sounds to me it is.
Iāve had very little luck trying to find a competitive BMW dealer on the east coast this time around, I found one 2500 mi away from me but shipping was killing the deal and that dealer told me he canāt get cheaper shipping that what i told him i could find (i just ran quotes on uship)
You might wanna try another broker site. Hot Shot drivers are a bit cheaper. The only way I would drive it back is bumping the lease up to 12,000 miles annually to swallow up the 2866 from B-More to back to SoCal.
But it would take about four days to get home. I used to drive trucks, itās not an issue, just time consuming.
I might just do it anyway because thereās an event called Focus Fest which is a gathering of Ford Focus and Focus ST owners from around the country. Mostly peeps from the Mid-West and East Coast, too far for most West Coasters to attend.
Itās Labor Day Weekend. I could attend that and then ship it back the following Sunday from either Davenport,IA or De Monies, IA, likely DM so I can fly Southwest back.
Have you considered European Delivery? At least then you can get a good discount maybe even more than the standard ED discount. Then your shipping back to the US, all the way to your local dealership would be at no cost to you.
Do you mind sharing the dealership details.
Which dealership? For the Ford or VW?
Ford. VW is waldorfvw right?
Somebody on the Fiesta ST forums just picked up a '16 Fiesta ST base for $19,202. He flew from Ohio ($115) to B-More and drove it back.
There some Waldorf reports on Mk7 Golf forums.
Both dealers are legit.
Thank you. I ll check them out. Is MD a better market for any other brand as well. Im undecided on the vehicle yet. So cross shopping quite a bit
I live in California so I need a dealer that complies with 50 State Emissions. I found good prices all the way up to CT and VT but thatās pushing it I thinkā¦lol
In Maryland I forgot how many Ford dealers there are and forgot Koonās direct competitor at the moment but they will match or beat Koonās, if I remember the name I will post a link.
Dealers have nothing to do with ā50-state emissions.ā Thatās all on the manufacturer. But to your point, if you live in CA, the car must be 50-state compliant. The good news is that there are not any new cars that are not that are manufactured for sale in the United States. The actual dealer will have specific proof and it will be printed on the label on the door jamb of the car.
I know dealers themselves have nothing to do with it. But for example, I canāt buy a car in Texas as itās not CA Emissions compliant. Because Texas is #1 in truck sales, that means cars like the Focus ST and Fiesta ST languish on lots for 30-60 days. In other words, I can get competitive pricing in Texas, however because itās missing one or two items I havenāt identified yet and not sure of the cost to make the car compliant, Iāll just get a car from a State that complies.
WA,OR, AZ, NM, MD, DC, PA, MA, VT, CT, NY, NJ, Maine and RI
As I said I found great prices as far up as Vermont but wow thatās far. I know I use to drive trucks, Iāve been up there a few times. Hell I could just rent a Ryder truck I think they still do have flat floors. I just have to figure out some way to strap it down, which I can figure out, I used to do flat bed.
If I understand your post correctly, itās $4,849 off MSRP before all the Ford rebates? Assuming all the rebates apply to either transaction, that would be the difference between a CA dealer and MD?
Aside from the shipping, keep in mind the following that will cut into your savings:
Higher doc fee in MD
Sales tax (I remember a situation similar to yours where I was almost double-taxed until I did my research, i.e. both out-of-state dealers were required to collect their stateās sales tax, but only one of those two states had a treaty with my home state that allowed me to avoid paying double)
Sorry $4649, thatās before the current rebates of $1,500 as this was not a car with the Blue Tag that would signal this car being in-stock the longest and get an additional $1,000 which is the current Ford promotion through July 5th.
MSRP $31,715
Koons WOW price $25,366 - http://tinyurl.com/zrqvk63
Add back in the rebates as they are apart of that price = $26,866
$31,715 - $26,866 = $4649
Take the Red Carpet Lease Rebate instead which is $3,000
Final Price before fees is $23,866
Supposedly thereās a freight charge and some other charge. Doc fees between CA and MD are about the same actually.
I donāt think I would be double taxed, I wasnāt in Washington. I had to pay the taxes to CA DMV on my current car when I bought it up there. Not sure if MD had a tax treaty with CA, Iāll check itās not that far along.
Funny but a lease would tax the lease amount, but the finance amount of a purchase would be lower because taxes wouldnāt be rolled in.
TT I would have to pay to CA would be around $2625
If the shipping cost were $1,500, out of pocket total would be $4125.xx
So a bit over $500 after all is said and done?
Not really the fees would be a one time cost. A dealer in the Seattle area said he would sell me the same car just a different color for $1,000 under invoice or $29,776 ($30,776 invoice). When you donāt know exactly what the dealer paid for the car, it makes the waters murky.
$29,776 - $26,866 = $2910
If I was generous, I could add the transportation cost of doing the Maryland deal into his car so the new offer would be $31,276. MRSP is $31,715ā¦($439)
Basically I would still win doing it the other way, the upfront cost are higher. But my payment would still be lower. I suppose the other way would to find a Blue Tag car (there are some here), get the extra $1,000 for a total of $2,500 in incentives. That basically knocks out most of the Tax, Title and License fees I would have to pay, which would be added right back in. Drive off cost for a lease are just over $1,700 which would again increase upfront cost to me.
If I saved $1,500 in transportation and $1,700 in drive-off charges = $3,200
Go with True Car because I donāt have a lower price from a dealer yet locally = $29,429
I donāt know what Ford would give me but my CU would give me 2.49% for 72 months that way I can take the rebates. Amount financed would be $26,819 with interested paid over 6 years ($2,081) = $401 a month
Fordās MF for 670 FICO and higher is .00021 = .5%
Fordās 0% is $13.89 per $1,000 borrowed or about .43%
In the end it would still be cheaper to buy that car back east, my payments would be lower no matter how you slice it. I would need to get similar savings from a CA/WA/OR/AZ dealer to make it worth while buying closer to home.
Lease would be $319 a month, 36 months x 10,000 miles, 43% Residual with the above MF, $1760 drive-off
Sign and Drive = $360 -/+
Finance = $330 -/+ a month if I take no rebates to get Fordās 0% for 72 months and put down $3200
But then I would have to pay CA TTL = $2,783, but if I give DMV $1,000 theyāll extended my time to pay taxes out to six months.
I would strike my card for the down and transportation fees in that case = $4,700
Otherwise it would be $3260 to transport and start my lease.
Did you get all that?
LOL
looks like a shipping broker for Europe, doesnāt really apply to US