Looking at an El Camino in New Mexico. From there to home is 30 hours of straight driving or 2,100 miles.
Would you just ship it or take your chances? Next, does the aggravation and time commitment plus fuel, tolls and hotel costs, offset the cost of shipping?
I'm asking for an opinion, all questions subjective to one's tolerance to sitting for long periods..... 
Dan
It's an SBC, so I'd probably take my chances. Shipping over 2100 miles is really expensive, and you can fix the car as long as there's a Harbor Freight and a FLAPS nearby.
FND. It's an adventure in and of itself IMO.
I think after you find out the estimated shipping cost, you will want to find something closer... If you have the free time and are open to a adventure, well that could be fun, maybe. I shipped a car about 1,000 miles and it wasn't cheap, I think it was about a dollar a mile, or something like that.
I've always dreamed of doing a fly and drive, I've bought and had shipped twice. Good experiences both times, didn't really cost that much. Can you afford the road trip? I'm guessing shipping will cost between $1200-2k, so how much road trip can you get for that? In my cases, time was the limiter, not funds, so shipping made sense.
I've shipped twice, San Antonio to NYC, $730 and Atlanta to Albany, NY - $600.
The Camino is a 4.3 V6 stick.
Apologies, this was supposed to be in the OT section.
I've done FND in the past but each time I did it with the back up plan of extra time for just in case. Worse case is always parking it at a storage yard to be picked up by a shipper later. Money was never my motivation as stated above the adventure was the reason.
In reply to 914Driver:
How comfortable do you think you'd be driving it 2,100 miles? That alone would tell me the answer.
I've done FND twice: Boston -> Austin in a miata and Los Angeles -> Austin in a Lexus. No mechanical issues, but one was much, much more enjoyable than the other.
If you're not going into it with the mindset to enjoy the trip, just ship it
If you have the time do it, I love fly and drives and wish I had time to do more of them.
calteg wrote: If you're not going into it with the mindset to enjoy the trip, just ship it
This. I'm going Friday with the mindset that I get to have an adventure with my father for 4 days. To top it off, I get to bring home a new rust free project. The inlaws do not understand this philosophy in the least, and the wife understands, but still thinks I'm nuts. There was no way in hell she was going to do that drive again.
I would check shipping costs and estimate your road trip cost. I bought a yukon from a friend in NJ and drove it to FL. By time time I paid for plane tickets for my wife and I as well as gas it was probably a wash. Got a little trip out to see a buddy though and hauled stuff back from my mom's.
Also how flexible is your time if something goes catastrophically wrong can you tack on extra days?
Before kids I would have leaned on driving now/currently my time is more limited.
Only do the FnD if you want the adventure or if this gives you some option to see it before paying.
Otherwise, go to Uship and do a "name your own price" type posting for 45 cents per mile or in this case right around $950. Add the Uship "booking fee" upon acceptance of right around 7% and this will bring your all-in shipping total to about $1k.
This assumes a fine running car shipped on an open carrier, not enclosed.
$200 Airline ticket, one way.
$225 If you get 21 mpg the you will need 100 gallons to get home at anywhere from $2 to $2.50 per gallon.
$300 Three nights of $79 per night hotels with taxes.
$725 rough budget so far.
I paid $146 for my one way ticket by going directly to Delta. My "worst case scenario" is grabbing a Uhaul and dolly and towing it home. Best case is we get 25mpg and have blast. I expect reality to fall somewhere in the middle.
You are retired correct? There is no way I wouldn't drive it in your shoes. I'd spend a week or more making that 30 hour drive and enjoy the scenery on the way.
I wish I had the time to do that on the bus trip. It would have been a lot more fun.
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