When you decide to ship your car, one initial concern that can pop up is how long shipping will take. In this post, we will walk you through the average shipping time for a car, factors that can speed up or slow down this process, estimate your shipping time, and ways that you can expedite the vehicle’s transport.
While the time frame for shipping a vehicle to a new location is highly dependent on a few variables, there are a few rough time estimates you can consider.
In general, it takes less than two weeks to ship a car.
Based on where you live, the average shipping time will usually be between 1 and 8 days, with two weeks residing on the higher end of that spectrum.
Several additional variables may affect how long it takes to ship your car. Let’s go over a few of these factors:
Distance is, by far, the most critical variable in the time it takes to ship a car. As you’d expect, it takes more time to ship a car if the distance between the pickup and dropoff points is more considerable.
That said, this only sometimes translates into shipping time. If traffic or weather conditions are bad, shipping your car to a closer location could take the same time as sending it to a further away city.
Some regions have better infrastructure for vehicle transport than others. If, for example, you are shipping your car to or from Hawaii, you can generally expect the process to take one or more weeks.
On the other hand, shipping your car to or from New York often takes less than a week due to the efficient transport infrastructure.
Conditions on the road between the two locations can make a massive difference.
Key factors to keep a watch for when it comes to road conditions include weather along the route, traffic, and decaying roads or streets. Each of these variables can result in a much longer shipping time than you might expect.
The location of your car’s pickup and dropoff points will also influence the shipping time.
Some locations may have routes that are harder to access for transport vehicles. Likewise, the pickup or dropoff location may not have optimal shipping infrastructure due to being on an island or rural area.
A rule of thumb that often works well when estimating a vehicle’s shipping time is to divide the distance between the two locations (in miles) by 150.
Here’s a handy chart that employs this method:
|
Distance |
Transit time |
|
0-500 miles |
1-2 days |
|
500-1000 miles |
2-3 days |
|
1000-1500 miles |
3-4 days |
|
1500-2000 miles |
5-6 days |
|
2000-2500 miles |
6-7 days |
|
2500-3000 miles |
7-8 days |
|
3000+ miles |
10-12 days |
What steps can you take to decrease the time spent waiting for your car to reach its new location?
You might be relieved to know that there are some helpful steps you can take to make the process go by more quickly, including picking the best shipping method, scheduling your transport for the right time of year, and knowing what transport company to use.
Let’s dive into each of these solutions:
Some transport methods are faster than others. For example, open-air transport tends to get finished more quickly than enclosed transport. In a similar vein, self-transport will often be a lengthier process than using a shipping company.
One important caveat to note is that a faster method may prove costlier. This trend is especially true if you use a third-party service instead of transporting the vehicle yourself.
Certain times of year tend to suffer from longer shipping times due to weather, traffic, and shipping demand.
Generally, the fall months will offer a faster shipping time than other parts of the year.
If you have the choice, scheduling transit for the autumn can help reduce shipping time for your vehicle.
Not all shipping companies will take the same time to transport your car!
Comparing different transport companies (especially by reading user reviews and testimonials) is an excellent way to choose a company that will take less time to ship your vehicle to a new destination.
It can be troublesome to figure out how long you’ll need to wait to ship your car to a new location. But, if you consider factors like distance, weather, shipping method, and the region you’re shipping to or from, you can usually get a reasonably accurate estimate for your transit time.
To learn more about shipping your car and what resources are available to make the process easier, look through Ship a Car’s website and see what information might help you!
