OK, so you’ve decided you need to ship a car, you’ve requested and compared quotes, settled on a price and placed your order. Great! The hard part’s over, so what happens next? As soon as your auto shipping company locates a carrier that’s running your route as close to your preferred pickup dates as possible you will be notified of the name of the car transport company and when their approximate pickup date will be. After that, you and the carrier will be in direct contact with each other to arrange both a time and a safe location to pick up your vehicle. Once those arrangements have been made and your scheduled pickup date arrives you will meet the carrier at the designated time and place and you will both do a walk-around visual inspection of your vehicle. Pay very close attention when doing this, because the very same thing will happen when your vehicle gets dropped off and this is your best if not your only chance to claim any carrier damage!

This brings us to the main part of our discussion; what is considered to be carrier damage, what is not, and who is liable. Before we go any further I need to state the following caveat; this information is not to be taken as legal advice, I am only stating the knowledge I’ve gained through my experience in the auto shipping industry after having overseen the shipment of approximately 75,000 vehicles. That being said, I’ve come across almost every scenario possible and observed simple mistakes people have made that caused them a lot of headaches that they could have avoided had they known what to look for. In earlier entries I promised you that this blog would be an insider’s guide to the auto shipping industry and that’s exactly what I intend to deliver! Make sure you check out parts 2 and 3 of this blog entry for a continued in-depth discussion over this important topic.