Finding the right car often means looking outside your home state.
Maybe a dealer in Texas has the trim you want for $3,000 less, or a private seller in Florida is unloading a clean, low-mileage SUV.
The deal works on paper.
The part most buyers underestimate is getting the vehicle home, which is where brokers like RoadRunner Auto Transport come into the picture.
Drive It Yourself or Ship It
You really have two options.
A solo drive sounds cheap until you add fuel, hotels, food, time off work, and the wear and tear you’re putting on a car you just paid for.
A 1,500-mile trip can easily eat $600 before you’ve slept in your own bed.
If anything goes sideways on the road, you’re stuck handling it far from home with a vehicle that isn’t yet registered in your name.
Hiring a carrier shifts that headache onto someone who does it daily.
Trucks running multi-car routes can move your vehicle for a flat rate that often beats the all-in cost of driving yourself, especially over long distances.
Open vs Enclosed Transport
Most buyers go with open transport because it’s cheaper and standard for everyday vehicles.
You’ve seen the trucks on the interstate stacked with eight or nine cars at a time, and that’s the network you’d be tapping into.
Enclosed transport makes sense for classics, exotics, or anything you wouldn’t want exposed to road salt, gravel, or weather.
The price gap is usually 30 to 60 percent, so the choice comes down to the value of the car and your tolerance for road grime.
What Drives the Price
Pricing depends on distance, route popularity, season, and the size of your vehicle.
A sedan moving along the busy I-10 corridor costs less per mile than a lifted truck heading to a rural pickup point in Montana.
Quotes also swing with fuel prices and how booked carriers are that week.
Snowbird season in spring and fall pushes rates up on north-south routes, while summer tends to be the busiest period overall.
Most companies in this space act as brokers rather than running their own trucks, which is the standard model and not a red flag on its own.
Before You Book
A few things matter before you hand over a deposit.
- Title and payment timing. Don’t release funds until the title is clean and the seller has it in hand, because no truck gets dispatched without a real pickup contact who can hand over the keys.
- Inspection at pickup. The driver does a walk-around and notes existing damage on the Bill of Lading, but takes your own date-stamped photos from every angle, including the roof and undercarriage if you can reach.
- Door-to-door vs terminal. Door-to-door means the truck gets as close to your address as it physically can, which on tight residential streets might mean meeting at a nearby parking lot.
- Insurance. Every carrier holds cargo insurance, but coverage limits vary, so ask for the certificate and confirm your vehicle’s value falls inside it before the truck loads.
How Long Shipping Actually Takes
Timing is the other thing buyers misjudge.
Transit time runs roughly 1 to 3 days for short hauls and 7 to 10 days coast to coast.
The pickup window itself is usually a 2 to 5 day spread, not a fixed date.
Carriers run loops, and your car waits for a truck heading in the right direction with a matching slot open.
Paying for expedited service tightens that window if you genuinely need the car by a specific day, like a closing date on a move or a flight back home.
A Note on Personal Items
Personal items inside the car are technically not covered by transport insurance.
Most carriers cap what you can leave to about 100 pounds in the trunk.
Don’t ship a vehicle stuffed with belongings unless you’ve cleared it with the broker first.
Overweight loads can be refused at pickup, which sends your timeline back to zero and sometimes triggers a dry-run fee.
Paying the Driver
Most carriers still want the balance paid on delivery, often in cash or certified funds.
The deposit usually goes to the broker when dispatch is confirmed, and the remainder goes to the driver when the car arrives.
This split is normal and protects you because the broker has skin in the game until the handoff happens.
If a company asks for the full amount upfront before a carrier is even assigned, treat that as a warning sign.
The Bottom Line
Buying out of state opens up a much bigger pool of cars at better prices, and the savings often more than cover shipping.
Getting it home is just logistics once you understand how the pieces fit.
With a decent broker, the whole thing runs in the background while you wait for delivery day.
