AM Express Auto Transport – Vehicle Transporters 1-866-662-5337

Here is a guide to help you with the preparation of your vehicle for transport:

Personal Items: Do not leave or transport anything valuable in your vehicle. AM Express Auto Transport or its agents is not responsible for anything loose inside your car, including cell phones, radar detectors, removable radios, household goods. 

Clean Car: In order to expedite origin inspection by your carrier, please provide the vehicle in clean condition. This allows for quick and fair evaluation of the vehicle prior to shipment, and establishes the standard for condition of delivery. 

Antennas: Antennas should be lowered or removed. Temporary antennas for cell phones or CB radios should also be removed. 

Racks: Remove any luggage, bike, or ski rack that is not permanently attached to the car.  

Keys: U.S. Department of Transportation requires that one set of all keys for the vehicle is provided to the carrier, including the ignition, trunk, and glove box keys. 

Spoilers: Spoilers, fairing, air dams or other low hanging items should be removed, or sufficient clearance assured, to expedite loading on the rail and truck ramps. 

Canopies/Caps: Caps and canopies on pickup trucks must be properly bolted to the box of the truck to ensure safe delivery. 

Personal Items: Do not leave or transport anything valuable in your vehicle. AM Express Auto Transport or its agents is not responsible for anything loose inside your car, including cell phones, radar detectors, removable radios, household goods, sunglasses, 

Car Alarms: Alarms should be turned off for transport. If there are special instructions required to start a car in order to disarm the alarm, please inform your carrier picking up your car. AM Express is not responsible for drained batteries resulting from an alarm that has not been turned off. 

Cracked Glass: Should the vehicle glass have a nick, scratch, chip, crack, or other imperfection, AM Express Auto Transport or its agents will not be responsible for damage caused by any pre-existing condition 

Here is also a list of 10 Tips fo Preparation:

It’s no secret that the internet has completely revolutionized the Auto Shipping industry. A large share of the industry has come from buy and selling cars online, particularly Ebay.

This article from Edmunds.com, is a great guide to online car buying:

Auto Shippers Deliver for Long-Distance Car Buyers
By Vivian Blackwell

Car buyers search to the ends of the earth via the Internet for the auto bargain of their dreams. Last year, USA Today reported that nearly 75 percent of cars sold on eBay were interstate transactions. A growing number of consumer-oriented auto shippers are eager to help online car buyers retrieve their purchases from distant cities.

“Visitors to our site have grown tremendously over the years,” said Wayne Harris, president of MoveCars.com, “especially since popular sites like Auto Trader and eBay emerged, allowing people to buy cars anywhere in the country — or the world. Then they turn to the Internet like the Yellow Pages to find companies to ship those cars back home.”

Finding a slot
Auto shippers wait until car carriers are full before dispatching them, and depend on “transport brokers” to quickly fill any empty slots on a transport truck. Car buyers can work directly with the shippers or through the brokers to find an open slot. A broker may be able to negotiate a lower price for you, but doesn’t offer direct contact with the car carrier during the car’s shipment — which can provide a certain peace of mind.

MoveCars.com, an online directory of auto transporters founded in 1996, offers more than 50 listings with direct links or online forms to request bids from brokers and auto shippers in the U.S. and Canada. Harris recommends contacting the auto transport companies via their toll-free numbers if you have questions. “They consider people who take the time to make a call to be serious customers and give them more attention than all the e-mails crammed in their in-boxes,” he said.

Using an enclosed truck to protect your car costs some 60 percent more than open trucks, but auto shippers recommend it for new or high-end vehicles.

Handling the details of your car shipment
Kenneth Resnik discovered some of the complications of shipping a car when he and his wife moved from New York to Nevada last year. “I was surprised to call one day and find out my car was in Dallas,” he said, “but the guys I worked with were up front about the process.” They explained that cars are transported between major hubs around the country and sometimes have to wait at a terminal until a carrier is full. Dependable Auto Shippers, the company Resnik chose, required an 18-day window for delivery.

** Note: At AM Express Auto Transport we never place your car in a terminal. We will never give you an 18 day transport window for delivery. We provide a door to door service, that allows you to feel confident that your car will be delievered in a timely manner and by a single driver that you can trust.

Personalizing your shipment experience
Customers can connect with a wide variety of car transporters at uShip, a Web site founded by Matt Chasen in 2003 as an interactive shipping marketplace similar in format to eBay. Members, who can join for free, list automobiles or other large freight they need to have shipped. Then shippers — including transporters, van lines, freight brokers and smaller independent delivery services — bid for the jobs. They can offer low shipping rates because they fill remaining slots in existing shipments.

Chasen explained that in the past, customers had to search for good rates, but in the uShip system, the companies search and compete for jobs. “Essentially, the right shipper comes to you,” he summed it up, estimating that on average uShip saves users 60 percent as compared to traditional transport services.

Vehicles are by far our largest category,” Chasen said. One-time shipping customers and wholesale vehicle dealers like Online Vehicle Exchange use uShip’s highly adaptable system. Recently, uShip launched a new estimator tool on the site for free price estimates based on similar shipments. Soon, a checklist of steps to take before shipping a car will be available.

Tips for shipping a car
The following tips could save you money and improve your peace of mind if you decide to ship a car:

• Compare companies: The provider directory on uShip includes user comments and ratings, and ratings Web sites like Epinions evaluate auto transporters. Matt Chasen pointed out that uShip’s ratings highlight smaller companies with good personal service and responsiveness. Factors to compare include price, insurance coverage and time required for delivery as well as quality of service.
• Ask Uncle Sam: The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration maintains a hotline (888) 368-7238 for consumers to check on a shipper’s license and insurance record as well as whether any complaints have been made about the company.
• Location, location, location: A delivery between two major cities may be cheaper because more carriers cover that route.
• Size matters: Bigger cars take up more space in the carrier and heavier cars add more cargo weight, making them more expensive to ship.
• Season matters: Fewer cars are transported in winter, so rates may be lower then. If you ship a car north from Florida or Arizona in April or May, you may get better rates from transporters who have dropped off cars for “snowbirds” (retirees who move south during the winter months) and need to fill slots for the return trip.
• Value matters: New or high-end vehicles should be shipped in an enclosed carrier, which could cost 60 percent more than open carriers.
• Stay cool: “Be patient,” Kenneth Resnik advises. “Shipping a car is a big operation and not something you go through every day, but it’s worth it.”

From Workday Minnesota:

In a telephone press conference, union Auto Transport Division Director Fred Zuckerman explained the two formerly bankrupt car companies are cutting costs by outsourcing the carhauling to non-union, unqualified and ill-equipped private operators. Up to 9,000 union workers could lose their jobs; At least 400 already have.

And adding,

The two auto firms, however, are laying off Teamster drivers and hiring “independent contractors” who have little training and take fewer safety precautions…

While the Auto Transporter service is a booming industry, thanks to gas prices and the expenses of moving a vehicle cross-country; nonetheless, it is quite tenuous and certain steps of protection need to be taken as a smart consumer.

AM Express Auto Transport is fully licensed, bonded, and insured, plus we have an A-Rating with the Better Business Bureau.  We take our due diligence to make sure that the drivers of your vehicles are the top in their industry.

Your satisfaction is our satisfaction.

For dealerships, though, making sure that your product is delivered properly is of utmost importance to us.  Dealers, please contact us for our dealer incentive program, and instead of being held hostage by overpaid Union Drivers, contract an Auto Transporter you can trust.

Welcome to AM Express’ Auto Transport Blog, where we keep our customers up to date on recent Auto Transport news and information, as well as giving some helpful tips to make your Transporting experience easier.

For those interested in having Auto Transportation Service, please fill out the form to the left or contact us at 1-866-662-5337.

Thank you.