Advice for First-timers

Nervous Nellie Submitted this review about Ship a Car Direct
Review made Live: 11/13/2011 1:29:00 PM
Having never shipped a car, we were somewhat nervous about the whole process. After reading lots of reviews, we finally chose Safe-Direct. Tom Miller was great to work with. He answered all our questions in detail, via both email and phone, sometimes responding within 15 minutes- -even across three time zones. Ditto for the carrier, AHA Global Logistics; we never got a recorded message- a live person answered the office phone. They provide the driver's cell number so you can contact him/her- which I did a couple times enroute (to keep up-to-date on his delivery schedule). Pickup was right on schedule. Delivery was within "expected" range- -which was no big deal for us, because driver Rico gave us plenty of notice. He did end up being an hour late- -but here around D.C., the traffic nightmares rarely let anyone arrive on time. Some tips:
1. Be flexible about delivery. Traffic, weather and intermittent delivery stops along the route can alter the schedule. Just stay in touch with the driver.
2. If your car is being transported on a large carrier, think about alternative delivery options. We live on a small street, which would have created a very difficult delivery for an 18-wheel vehicle. So, we arranged to meet the carrier at a large commerical parking lot, and delivery was a breeze.
3. Write everything down, especially phone numbers, even if you correspond by email. Read the Terms and Conditions (part of the shipping contract), then, before you commit, call your auto insurance agent to let him/her know what is going on and to confirm when your coverage begins. (For instance, ours began when the car rolled off the carrier and we took delivery.) Happily, our car was in fine shape with nothing but a bit of interstate highway dust. And it sure beat the price of flying to Texas and driving the car back ourselves.
All in all: We had a very satisfactory experience and would not hesitate to recommend Safe-Direct to others.