Hi Everyone,
I'm relocating for work and I need to have my 84 VW GTI moved from Long Island, NY down to Metro Atlanta soon. I would normally do a U-Haul and a dolly if it were a shorter move, but they want $3,110 for the U-Haul alone, and I can same myself a lot of hassle and $1,100 by doing a Pods Moving Container.
I've gotten quotes from a handful of companies and it looks like I'll have to do it on an open transport carrier. I can't afford to do a fully enclosed trailer.
Anyone have any experience with good companies working on the East Coast?
Likewise any horror stories of companies I should avoid?
And this is stupid question since I've never used one before, if it's shipping on an open carrier with multiple other cars they have to pick up is it likely that they will take multiple days to arrive?
To be honest I'm in no big hurry to have it get there, and I won't have an apartment lined up right away when I do. Chances are I'd be putting it in a parking garage or storage for a week or so. I want to have it picked up by the 26th and delivered on like the 2nd ( 6 days).
Dude, hope everything is good with you haven't talked in a While! You can use uship for quotes on the car hauler and yeah it'll take some time for them to get it there. Did you try Penske for the moving truck? They were half u-hails price last time I moved
Uhaul is pretty crazy with their pricing. They max out supply and demand. With lots of people moving out of NYC, ala Covid, there are more trucks leaving the NYC area then there are arriving. So, Uhaul has to move empty trucks into the NYC area and they really just charge you to cover this expense.
As an example, I went to the Uhaul site and rented from my Ohio home to Jacksonville, Fl and the cost for a 26'er is $1,300 for the just under 1k miles. Then, Long Island to Atlanta or also just under 1k miles is $3,700 for the 26'er
I have not used myself, but friends have and like this service from ABF. IF you have the room, a short semi is dropped to your house for a few days. You fill your stuff in the front and then put in the locking barrier. On this 28ft trailer, if there is then 20ft remaining then ABF loads the remaining feet with pallets of whatever they also have going to Atlanta. Your trailer then might go to a manufacturing facility to drop off that load. Then, later, the semi with only your stuff is dropped at your new address for a few day for you to unload.
In this thread I link to a guy I used a couple of years ago. I was very happy. He is Jax, FL based. I know on the circle route he made on my trip (which I was just a small part of) he was in Metro DC too. I'm not sure if he "bothers" with NYC. Many truckers want nothing to do with it. For my route of Ohio to Illinois he was $330 for 440 miles or .75 per mile. With the tolls in NYC/East, I would think $1 per mile is what to expect as a low rate. Your trip is probably 925 miles so anything near $925 would be expected.
In years past, I have had 1k mile trips done for $500 or 50 cents. These were Florida to Ohio. Again, no tolls and popular routes. The longer the trip the lower the per mile cost tends to be.
Edit: it should be noted that the guy I used above, I paid for open trailer. That was the original plan but then as he was building the loads for the circle route he was taking, someone else on the trip was paying him for closed trailer. Therefore, I got closed for the price of open.
chandler said:
Dude, hope everything is good with you haven't talked in a While! You can use uship for quotes on the car hauler and yeah it'll take some time for them to get it there. Did you try Penske for the moving truck? They were half u-hails price last time I moved
Hey man, how's it going? Things are good here. Pretty excited for the move and the new job. Also no more snow! I'm thinking it's Mustang or C5 Vette daily driver time next year.
Penske is really high too. $3k for a 16' truck, and $4k for a 22' truck!!! Pods is definitely cheaper and less hassle. To be honest I'm not sure I'd be comfortable driving a 22' truck with the Rabbit in tow through the mountains in winter either. If it was July that would be a different story.
John Welsh said:
Uhaul is pretty crazy with their pricing. They max out supply and demand. With lots of people moving out of NYC, ala Covid, there are more trucks leaving the NYC area then there are arriving. So, Uhaul has to move empty trucks into the NYC area and they really just charge you to cover this expense.
As an example, I went to the Uhaul site and rented from my Ohio home to Jacksonville, Fl and the cost for a 26'er is $1,300 for the just under 1k miles. Then, Long Island to Atlanta or also just under 1k miles is $3,700 for the 26'er
Wow!!! No wonder I'm getting such a high number!!!! That's crazy. It makes sense though, like you said, high demand and it's a pain in the butt to get in and out of here. I'll have to give ABF a call tomorrow and see if they can drop their rate some more if I do a terminal load.
Right now I'm booked for a 16' Zippy Shell container for $2,010. My apartment actually has a really bad layout for dropping a container here because of the driveway layout. I'm on a corner lot at the intersection of a diagonal street, and there's a Horseshoe driveway with a slight incline and trees. Basically, they can't back in straight unless they block the garage and my landlord in. So I'm going to go to the actual warehouse location instead and load on site. That saved me $550 with Zippy Shell and they also knocked off the $189 first month storage fee. I'm not sure I'm going to beat that number. I'll look into ABF though if I can do a terminal load. I like the idea that the size is flexible. If I end up needing an extra foot or 2 of space that would be great! Might save me from needing to buy a new couch when I get there! LOL
John Welsh said:
In this thread I link to a guy I used a couple of years ago. I was very happy. He is Jax, FL based. I know on the circle route he made on my trip (which I was just a small part of) he was in Metro DC too. I'm not sure if he "bothers" with NYC. Many truckers want nothing to do with it. For my route of Ohio to Illinois he was $330 for 440 miles or .75 per mile. With the tolls in NYC/East, I would think $1 per mile is what to expect as a low rate. Your trip is probably 925 miles so anything near $925 would be expected.
In years past, I have had 1k mile trips done for $500 or 50 cents. These were Florida to Ohio. Again, no tolls and popular routes. The longer the trip the lower the per mile cost tends to be.
Edit: it should be noted that the guy I used above, I paid for open trailer. That was the original plan but then as he was building the loads for the circle route he was taking, someone else on the trip was paying him for closed trailer. Therefore, I got closed for the price of open.
Yeah it's a hassle out here. Fortunately I'm in the middle of Long Island near the Nassau/Suffolk County border so it's not like loading in the city, but that also means we have a lot of commercial truck restricted roads. Some of the main Parkways are car only.
Thanks for the recommendation and I'll have to check your guy out.
Just curious, how long was his overall pickup to delivery time? Did he say much about how long an open trailer would have taken instead?
To be honest I kinda want it to take longer. If they pick it up much before when I plan to leave I'm afraid they could beat me down there. I want to drive myself down in the daily driver on Fri the 25th or Sat the 26th and get there on Sunday the 28th. If it took them like a week to grab it and deliver that would also increase my chances of having an apartment settled by the time they got there. Otherwise I may be paying to put it in a parking garage or storage temporarily.
I just talked to ABF. Looks like a good service, the only drawback for me right now is that they don't offer storage in between drop off like Pods and Zippy Shell, etc. do built into the contract. He said storage at their terminal is $750 a month, where Pods, et. all are usually $200 to $300 monthly and you get a free month. The container basically goes to the warehouse and it stays there til I request the drop. I'm reluctant to sign a lease sight on seen, so chances are I won't have an apartment lined up for a week or 2 after I arrive.
Another company that does what ABF does...https://www.odmove.com/ODMove/
My Prius that went 440 miles is really just 7 hrs away. I think he picked up from me late afternoon and dropped the next day, late, like 11pm. If I remember correctly, he was leaving my place (1 hr west of Cleveland, OH) and then heading into Metro Detroit to drop off an ATV in the trailer too. From there I think he went to Indianapolis before Springfield, IL.
My advice to you would be to arrange a drop of point that they could in theory drop the car as early as the next day. Do you have a friend in Atlanta who could accept the car's delivery on your behalf?
You might try to find a shipper who does what is called terminal to terminal. You drop the car at the shippers location (terminal) and in a few days they put it on a truck. They then send it to their own parking lot in Atlanta metro and you show up later to retrieve it from their parking lot. Not a lot cheaper but a lot more convenient for the trucking company so that might be reflected in the price. I have never done the same but I live next to a commercial parking lot, not far off the main interstate so I am an easy place to drop off and pick up from.
This transport company is NY based. They transport for the local Porsche dealer, I had a friend who used to work at the dealer who gave me their name when I was looking for a car out of state.
https://laurandtransportllc.com/
John Welsh said:
You might try to find a shipper who does what is called terminal to terminal. You drop the car at the shippers location (terminal) and in a few days they put it on a truck. They then send it to their own parking lot in Atlanta metro and you show up later to retrieve it from their parking lot. Not a lot cheaper but a lot more convenient for the trucking company so that might be reflected in the price. I have never done the same but I live next to a commercial parking lot, not far off the main interstate so I am an easy place to drop off and pick up from.
That's a good idea and I might have to look into that more. At least that may make sense for the pickup at the end. I'd be fine with grabbing it from their lot after if I had to. The frustrating thing and the irony is that I drive past a Ply Car location EVERY DAY, but they only do Closed transport and it was $600 - $800 higher for the quote than anyone else when I had it quoted a year ago for a similar potential move.
I talked to my landlord about leaving it in the garage when I leave and having her hand over the keys when they come. I may do that if it comes down to it.
rico750sxi_2 said:
This transport company is NY based. They transport for the local Porsche dealer, I had a friend who used to work at the dealer who gave me their name when I was looking for a car out of state.
https://laurandtransportllc.com/
Thanks!!! I'll have to check them out.
Put it inside the POD and pack around it.
John Welsh said:
Another company that does what ABF does...https://www.odmove.com/ODMove/
This looks promising actually, $2,008 for drop to drop. I'm going to have to call them tomorrow and ask about what terminal > terminal might cost. Thanks!
Best of luck with the costs. It sounds like people moving from NY to anywhere are getting gouged just like people moving from CA to anywhere. You will basically pay double (for Uhaul or Penske or other DIY things) to leave the state, as I nearly did when going from CA to ATL last year. I paid like five grand for a big van and car hauler (which was supposedly a "good" deal). By the way, it does snow here. It's usually gone the same day, though . . .
In reply to rustomatic :
Try it yourself on the Uhaul site... Same days, same equipment, etc.
NYC to Atlanta $3,700
Atlanta to NYC: $783
Atlanta has a lot of trucks ending up there so too much equipment. NYC has no trucks available because they are all ending up in places like Atlanta.
Los Angeles to Austin, TX: $6,358
Austin, TX to Los Angeles: $935
DAMN!
Uhaul has always paid their customers to move their inventory from the places it is overstocked to the places needed.
It's not gouging when there is no inventory to rent.
They have to pay a driver to move it from somewhere else to NYC, pay the driving costs and maintenance and insurance, and transport their driver back to where he started.
It's the cost of doing business.
It's not their fault that the customers are having a mass exodus.
rustomatic said:
Best of luck with the costs. It sounds like people moving from NY to anywhere are getting gouged just like people moving from CA to anywhere. You will basically pay double (for Uhaul or Penske or other DIY things) to leave the state, as I nearly did when going from CA to ATL last year. I paid like five grand for a big van and car hauler (which was supposedly a "good" deal). By the way, it does snow here. It's usually gone the same day, though . . .
Yeah, it's insane how bad they are gouging people right now. 
On the plus side I have a $5k relocation bonus thankfully so this should cover the whole move. I just have to be careful on budget to have enough left for help loading and unloading my stuff.
I can deal with a one day dusting vs. a Nor'Easter that drops a foot. Besides, I'll be the guy doing donuts in the parkinglot while everyone else is deathly afraid to drive on powder! LOL
I also noticed that prices for local Uhaul truck in NYC are $40 per day and $2 per mile but in Atlanta they are $40 per day and $1 per mile.
How about this if time is unlimited...
Drive GTI to Atlanta and leave it in a storage box at a Uhaul facility, probably $100 per month.
Pick up 26 ft Uhaul truck in Atlanta and drive 1k miles, empty to NYC or $1k charge. Then drive it back down, full for another $1k charge.
That is $2k in mile charges. It costs $40 per day or $400 per 10 days or $1,200 per 30 days to keep the truck. This means you could have all your belongings parked right outside your temporary hotel for the first two weeks.
Recap:
$2,000 in miles charges ($1,000 each way of 1,000 miles)
$1,200 in daily charges (for keeping it a month)
$500 in truck fuel (thinking $250 each way)
$300 in hotel if you stop one night each leg of the trip, $100 per night
$0 to transport GTI other than gas to drive it (maybe $100)
$100 to store the GTI in ATL but it is there waiting for you when you drop off the truck.
$3,100 total for car move and Uhaul move with a month of storage by keeping the full truck.
In reply to John Welsh :
The local rental price may be more. They are discounting the price if it ends up in NYC
Have you looked at rental prices in NJ, or PA?
Its only an hour and a half from NYC to PA
I'll sell my 24' enclosed car trailer for $4500.
Use it as much as you want, unpack it as slowly as you want, and when you are done, sell it for $4500.
Keep your moving allowance.
