Austin Car Shipping

The cost to ship a car from Austin is typically $975 to Orlando and up to $1,375 from Sacramento, on an open trailer, and takes between three to six days in transit time.

Those are mid-size car prices. An SUV or crossover usually adds $150 to $200, and a full-size pickup more again.

Short runs inside Texas cost far less. Prices are estimates and move with fuel, so take the live number from the calculator on this page.

Three to six days on most long runs, counted from pickup rather than from booking. Orlando and San Diego are at the short end, Northern California at the long end.

Inside Texas it is usually one to two days. Houston, San Antonio and Dallas are all close enough to be next-day runs.

Your pickup happens inside a window that starts on the date you ask for. Six days standard, three days expedited.

Under about 200 miles, drive it. Austin sits 80 miles from San Antonio, 162 from Houston and 195 from Dallas. That is a couple of hours and a tank of gas.

Shipping those runs makes sense in four cases. You need a flight or a one-way rental back. It is a second car nobody is traveling in. You have two vehicles and one driver. Or you bought it remotely and have never collected it.

We would rather tell you that than sell you a short run you do not need.

Because of where it sits. Interstate 35 runs straight through Austin from Dallas down to San Antonio and the border. Interstate 10, the southern road across the country, is about an hour south.

That means an Austin pickup can join a truck heading east toward Florida, west toward California, or north up the I-35 spine, without much backtracking.

Good access in several directions is what gives you choice of truck, and choice of truck is what keeps a price sensible.

The ones with real loads behind them. Right now that is Austin to Orlando, Austin to San Diego, Los Angeles to Austin and Sacramento to Austin.

Everything else on the table says quoted live. That is not us being cagey. It means we do not have a current published band we would stand behind, so we give you the number on the day instead.

Ask for any route on the list and you will have it in minutes.

Not a staffed one, and we would rather say so plainly. Your order is handled by our people on the phone, and a licensed carrier does the driving.

Our four staffed offices are in Lakewood, Washington; Los Angeles, California; Chicago, Illinois; and Kissimmee, Florida.

It makes no difference to how your move runs. Your car is collected from your Austin address and delivered to the address at the other end. There is nothing to drop off.

Six things. Both ZIP codes. The size and weight of the car. Whether it runs. The season. How flexible your dates are. Open against enclosed.

Distance matters, but not as much as people expect once you are past about a thousand miles. What matters more is how busy the route is and how easily a driver can reach you.

Flexible dates help most. A wider window lets a driver fit your car onto a trip already going your way.

Plan on about 80 percent more than open. A $1,100 open move is roughly $1,980 enclosed. A hard-sided trailer holds two to six cars where an open one holds ten, so each car carries more of the cost.

Worth it for a classic, an exotic, fresh paint, or a car too low to clear a ramp. For a daily driver, open is the right call.

Nine out of ten cars we move go open and arrive fine.

Yes. Every carrier we assign holds Carrier Cargo Insurance, and it covers your vehicle while it is on the truck.

Once your car is assigned to a truck and carrier, the certificate of insurance is on file. Ask us and we will send it over.

You and the driver both sign a condition report at pickup and again at delivery. That document is what any claim rests on, so take your time with it.

Usually yes, within reason. Most drivers will take a few things as a courtesy. Keep it under about 100 pounds, pack it neatly, and keep it out of sight from outside the car.

Think a few boxes in the trunk rather than a carload. The one thing to know is that you are paying to move the vehicle, so the carrier's insurance covers the car itself.

Keep anything you would hate to lose with you.

Yes, wherever a truck can safely and legally reach you. A car hauler is about 75 feet long, so some streets work and some do not.

Downtown Austin, the streets around campus and the older central neighborhoods are the tight ones. Round Rock, Cedar Park, Pflugerville and most of the suburbs are straightforward.

Where a street is tight, the driver picks a wide spot close by. A shopping center lot a few minutes away is normal and costs you nothing extra.

Wash it first so the condition report is accurate, then photograph it from every angle in good light. That is the most useful thing you can do.

Leave about a quarter tank of fuel. Fold the mirrors, take off a roof rack or spoiler if it comes away easily, and turn the alarm off.

Hand over one key. Tell the driver anything unusual about starting it.

Mid-August and mid-March are the two weeks to plan around. The university move-in and the spring festival season both pull a lot of people into the city at once.

Book a week or two earlier in those stretches and you will have more choice of truck. Nothing about it stops a move happening, it just rewards booking early.

Late spring and early fall are the easiest stretches of the year here.

One to two weeks ahead gives you good choice. Pickup runs inside a window that starts on the date you request. Six days standard, three days expedited.

A deposit is due at booking and the balance at delivery, commonly by cashier's check, money order or cash. You can also put the full amount on a card at the time of booking.

Paying by card up front is popular. It lets you spread the cost rather than hand over money at the curb.

Check the numbers first. Smart Auto Move Inc runs under USDOT 2887232 and MC 969368. You can look both up on the FMCSA SAFER system in under a minute.

We are BBB accredited with an A plus rating, and our Google profiles and their reviews are public.

The biggest red flag is a quote far below everyone else. If four companies say $1,100 and the fifth says $550, ask that fifth company straight out whether the price is confirmed. A number that low usually comes back up later.

Because a car moves when a driver agrees to take it. If the number is below what drivers accept on the route, nobody picks it up and the car sits.

Then the call comes that the price has gone up. You have lost a week and you are paying the real rate anyway.

We would rather give you a true number now. That is what the Smart Price Promise is for.

Yes, as long as it rolls, steers and brakes. The driver needs a winch, so we match you with a truck that carries one.

There is no flat fee for it. It usually adds $200 or more over the same car running, and the exact figure depends on the truck.

Tell us at quote stage. A car that turns out to be non-running on the day is the most common reason a pickup gets rescheduled.

You get the driver's direct phone number, so you can call or text while your car is on the road. We also send email updates at the milestones.

Where the carrier and truck support GPS, we pass that on too. Plenty of trucks carry no reliable tracking system, and we would rather say so than promise a map that does not work.

Most customers find a quick text the day before delivery is all they want.

Cancel any time before we assign a carrier and your deposit comes back to you. Once we assign one and send you the driver's details, that money is spoken for.

It is not gone, though. You can push the move back and use it on a later shipment.

Plans change. Tell us early and we will work around it.

Yes. Round Rock, Cedar Park, Pflugerville, Georgetown, Leander, Kyle, Buda, San Marcos, Lakeway and Bastrop are all collected the same way as central Austin.

Suburban pickups are often the easier ones, because there is more room for a 75-foot truck to stop and load.

Give us the exact pickup ZIP at quote stage and you get the figure for your address rather than for the city.