Pricing Explained
How Much Does Car Transport Cost?
For anyone getting quotes and trying to work out why they differ so much
Car transport quotes for the same job can differ by a factor of three, and that is not because one company is greedy. It is usually because they are quoting two different services: a dedicated truck taking your car straight there, or a space on a shared load that leaves when the load is full. This page sets out what actually drives the price so you can compare like for like before you book.
Goods in transit cover · Fixed price before booking · Condition photographed at both ends
What changes the price
Nothing here is a surcharge invented on the day. These are the things that make one job take longer than another, and they are all settled on the phone before you book.
Distance, and the shape of it
Cost tracks the driver's day rather than the map mileage. Two hundred motorway miles can be cheaper to serve than eighty miles of cross country A roads.
Dedicated or shared load
A shared multi car load is cheaper per vehicle but comes with a delivery window and yard time. A dedicated load costs more and gives you a date.
Runner or non runner
A car that drives on takes minutes. A winch job with skates under seized wheels takes far longer, and loading time is priced in.
Vehicle size and weight
A supermini, a long wheelbase van and a wide arch 4x4 are three different loads. Size affects the truck sent and sometimes the route.
Access at both ends
A yard is easy. A narrow terrace street, a multi storey, a farm track or a car boxed in behind others all add time before the wheels turn.
Notice and flexibility
Booking a few days out with a flexible day is the cheapest way to move a car. A named morning tomorrow is the most expensive.
What the booking covers
A fixed price quoted before anything is booked, not an estimate revised later
Loading, strapping, transport and unloading all inside the quoted figure
No separate call out fee on planned transport work
VAT position made clear on the quote rather than added at invoice
Any change of address or date repriced with you before it happens
Why we quote per job rather than publishing a per mile rate
A flat per mile rate only works if every job is the same shape, and they are not. The same eighty miles can be a forty minute load out of a dealer yard or a two hour extraction of a seized car from a back garden.
Give us the two postcodes, the vehicle and whether it drives, and you get a real number rather than a headline rate that grows on the day.
Questions worth asking any transporter
Is this a dedicated load or a shared one. Is the price inclusive of VAT. Is there a waiting time charge if the collection is delayed at the other end. What is the insurance position while the car is on the truck. What happens to the price if the car turns out not to start.
Any transporter worth using will answer all five on the phone without hesitating.
Transport pricing is not recovery pricing
Emergency recovery is priced around getting somebody off the road quickly and includes an immediate call out. Planned transport is priced around a driver's diary. If you are broken down right now, the recovery cost guide is the one you want instead.
Price up your car transport cost
Two postcodes, the vehicle and whether it drives is all we need for a fixed price. No obligation and no deposit taken.
Car Transport Cost: your questions
Most relevant to this job
Everything else on the transport side
Broken down right now rather than planning a move? Go to emergency recovery.
Ready when you are
Planned transport is booked to a date, priced before you commit and photographed at both ends. Send the two postcodes and we will come back with a number.