Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

Car Transport Recommendation? (CA to WA)

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.
Slightly Off-Topic, my apologies.

I'm in the process of selling my gently used California-located Model S to a family member who lives in Washington State (they are getting a great deal). More importantly - can anyone recommend a car transport company that has some familiarity with Tesla and whom is reasonably priced?

Thanks.
 
Q: How much do you like your family member up in WA?

Assuming you want it sheltered from the elements during its presumably wet trip up to the PNW this winter (as opposed to an open car carrier), I'd recommend going with an enclosed trailer shipper. I've used Intercity Lines, Inc. as well as Reliable Carriers, Inc. in the past and both worked great; delivering the vehicles on time and, more importantly, exactly as they left their origination point as indicated on the manifest. No personal experience shipping a Tesla with either of them, however, as I don't own one yet (soon... hopefully!), but they're used to dealing with high value collector cars so I'm sure a modern classic would get the same level of respect.

Why is that important you may ask? Essentially, if you go with a budget carrier, it's all about volume and delivery/pick-up turn-over. I once had a '67 GTO convertible shipped to me on an open carrier and the top arrived covered in oil. My take was that in trying to save a few bucks, my car basically got thrown in along with all the other cars and was treated as such. You often see these rigs on the highway with an old classic or two intermingled between a bunch of avg and below avg cars getting delivered to hard working folks who often don't have means to maintain these vehicles in the first place. These cars leak all kinds of fluids when they're parked in driveways or garages so you can imagine what happens as they sit on an auto transport that's bouncing down the highway for 1K - 3K miles. My GTO was the unfortunate recipient of what appeared to be at least three quarts of oil, presumably from someone's beater that was loaded above it on it's trip from NY to CA. I never did get all of it out.

You won't get that treatment if you pay the premium for an enclosed trailer. Each vehicle is loaded on carefully and then covered & wrapped to protect it from any leaks. There's no high volume churn rate so your car is pretty much loaded on an ideally never moved again until it reaches its destination; as opposed to the open carrier where your car will be moved multiple times during its journey opening it up to more potential damage. The driver or dispatch team will give you periodic status reports and work with you to coordinate an agreeable arrival ETA window. The budget shipper never called me until the driver (who was scheduled to arrive the following day) rang me at my office 20 miles away saying he had the car unloaded outside my house and needed me to get there quickly so he could move to the next drop off. Anyway, refer to the initial question at the top of my post and take it from there ;)