Ship Cars Like A Pro With These Tips
Car shipping can be a lifesaver service for people who are looking to relocate anywhere in the world and want to bring their car along with them. But more often than not, this life saver service can become a traumatic experience. People often end up paying lots and lots of money for shipping their cars overseas. There are a number of things that can make or break the shipping cars experience for you. Keeping these things in check can help you a lot in not only making your car shopping experience smooth, but cheap as well. Do remember that car shipping process is always hectic, even for professionals who do this for a living. But you can certainly take steps to make things a little bit easier and we here are going to tell you how exactly to do that with these pro tips.
Clean Your Car Before Handing It Over To Car Shippers
Whether you are shipping cars overseas or across country, this is a must thing to do. Get your car a nice wash. Cleaning the car from inside won’t hurt either. Washing and cleaning your vehicle helps you take clear pictures of the outlook of your vehicle and generally how it looks before you hand it over to the shipping company. You should take pictures of the vehicle as evidence of the vehicle’s condition. This will come in handy when your vehicle is delivered to you and it has any scratches or bumps or damage in general that wasn’t there when you handed it over.
Vehicle Inspection Report
Always do the vehicle report as it will be the only proof you have about the vehicle’s condition in case there is an accident. This will save you a lot of trouble in case things go wrong because the vehicle inspection report is the only evidence you will have about the condition of your vehicle before it was picked up by the car shipping company. Your car shipping company will most likely do an inspection of your car before taking it over from you. Make sure to do one inspection yourself or hire a professional to do so. This should all be done before you sign the Bill of Lading and make sure that the inspection report is detailed and you understand everything mentioned in it. If there are any points that you do not understand, ask about them from the car shipping company. Keep a copy of the inspection report for your own record so you can present it if you need to claim damages.
Remove All Personal Items
You would think that since you are shipping your vehicle, then why not ship your personal belonging with it? Well, there are more than reasons why that is a very bad idea. First of all, your vehicle will mostly remain unlocked from the time you hand it over to the car shipping company. Neither car shippers, nor the insurance companies cover the loss or theft of personal items that were in the vehicle. If you think you can live with such a loss, then go ahead and pack your personal stuff in there, but there is another reason why you shouldn’t do this. The second reason is that most car shipping companies have weight limits, especially when you are shipping overseas. If your vehicle weighs more than it should, then you will be charged extra for the overweight of your vehicle. This cost will be most likely higher than it would normally take to ship such items by normal courier or moving service. Not to mention, more secure too.
Secure All Loose Parts
Make sure to do a thorough inspection of your vehicle to see if there are any loose parts in there. Make sure all loose parts are properly locked or removed from the vehicle. Car shipping, whether it is overseas or across country will take a couple of weeks and quite a lot of movement. This includes, but not limited to, taking off parts such as fog lights, spoilers, mirrors (fold them back), antennas and so on. Making sure these parts are secure makes transporting your vehicle a lot safer.
Disable Car Alarm
More often people get cars where it doesn’t run because the battery died out. This mainly happens because the alarm kept going until the battery couldn’t keep it going any longer. Forgetting to put off the car alarm system is very common sense people are used to leaving it on when they get out of their vehicles. It is very important that you disconnect the alarm system entirely. Do this when you are preparing your car for shipping overseas. If you don’t and your car reaches it point where it won’t start anymore then you will be charged extra for the car shipping company to have it tow it.
Do Not Fill Up The Fuel Tank and Don’t Leave It Completely Empty
Different people have different opinions when it comes to how much fuel should be in the vehicle when they hand it over to the car shipping company. Your car will need fuel for the car shipping company to drive it on and off the ship or container and move it to a secure parking. For that, ¼ of tank of fuel is more than enough. Filling up tank is not safe and it also adds up towards the vehicle’s weight, which can translate towards shipping costs. So make sure to only leave ¼ of fuel to avoid overpaying on shipping cars.
Car Battery Fully Charged and Tires Inflated
Before handing over your vehicle to the car shipping company, make sure that all car fluids are red lidded. If there are any leaks, make sure your car shipping company is made aware of those. Car fluid leaks, such as oil, brake or transmission fluid should be fixed as they can cause damages not just to your vehicle but to other vehicles as well.