Between $450 and $2,500 on an open trailer, and distance sets the band. About $450 to $900 under 500 miles, $900 to $1,600 from 500 to 1,500 miles, $1,250 to $2,100 from 1,500 to 2,500 miles, and $1,600 to $2,500 past 2,500 miles. Those are operable mid-size vehicles moving door to door. The table on this page shows twelve real routes we publish, and several of them land below the band for their distance, which is the part worth understanding before you book.

No, and any figure quoted that way will mislead you. A 400-mile move and a 3,000-mile move do not scale against each other, because loading, paperwork and the driver's time at each end cost the same whether the trailer then travels one state or ten. Distance gives you the band. What decides where you land inside it is the direction you are going, how busy that lane is, the vehicle and the time of year. Put both zip codes into the calculator and you will have the real number in about a minute.

Because trucks follow freight, not a map. Look at two routes we publish: Naperville, Illinois to San Antonio, Texas is 1,175 miles at $950 to $1,100, and Cary, North Carolina to Dallas, Texas is 1,180 miles at $1,325 to $1,475. Five miles apart, and the difference is real. Chicago is one of the densest freight origins in the country, so trucks leave it constantly heading southwest and your car fills a space on a run already happening. The Carolinas to Texas lane carries fewer trucks, so more of the trip is arranged for you specifically. Good news if you are shipping out of a busy origin: you benefit from it automatically.

Coast to coast runs $1,600 to $2,500 on an open trailer, and seven to ten days on the road once the car is loaded. Boston to Los Angeles is 2,984 miles at $1,850 to $2,150 and Worcester to San Jose is 3,092 miles at $1,950 to $2,250. Westbound and eastbound are not always the same price on the same lane, and January to March the southern routes fill up with seasonal traffic, so a long move rewards three to four weeks of notice more than a short one does.

Plan on about 80 percent more than open. A $1,000 open move is roughly $1,800 enclosed. The arithmetic is simple: a hard-sided trailer carries two to six vehicles where an open one carries ten, so each car absorbs more of the trip. It is the right call for a classic, an exotic, fresh paint, a car too low to clear a standard ramp, or a winter run through road salt. For a daily driver, open transport is what most people choose and it is how dealerships receive new stock.

Yes, and it comes down to deck space and weight rather than the badge on the hood. A sedan is the baseline. An SUV or a crossover sits a little above it. A full-size pickup, a long-wheelbase van or a dually takes the space of more than one car and prices accordingly. Lift kits, roof racks, oversized tires and lowered suspension all matter because they change what the driver can load above or below your vehicle. Tell us at booking and the quote is right the first time.

Late spring and early fall are the calmest stretches on most lanes, and that is when a given route tends to sit at the lower end of its range. January through March, northbound capacity out of Florida and Arizona tightens as seasonal residents head home, and late August is busy everywhere because of college move-in. None of those periods is a bad time to ship, they simply reward booking earlier. Two to three weeks of notice in a busy stretch usually costs less than one week in a quiet one.

It does, and it is the lever most people never use. A six-day standard window lets us put your car on a truck that is already running your direction. A single fixed morning asks a driver to build his week around you, and that is a more expensive job to fill. Expedited exists for when the date genuinely cannot move and takes the window from six days to three. If your dates are flexible, say so at booking, because it is worth money.

There is no flat fee for it. Budget from about $200 upward on top of the running price, and what sets the figure is how the vehicle behaves rather than the fact that it will not start. A car that rolls, steers and brakes needs a winch and a driver with the right trailer. One that will not roll or steer needs more equipment than that. Tell us exactly what it does and does not do and we will price it properly, because this is one where a vague description leads to a wrong number.

A little, and mostly through how easily a full-size carrier reaches it. Addresses near a major interstate are the simplest and price at the bottom of the range. City blocks with parked cars on both sides are normally solved with a meeting point a few minutes away, at no extra cost. Genuinely rural addresses well off the interstate ask for more notice, and occasionally a little more, and we will tell you honestly which situation you are in before you book.

It can, and this is the one thing worth being careful about when you compare. A number well below everyone else's usually means the amount offered to the carrier is below what drivers on that lane will take, so the car sits waiting for a truck that does not come, and the price climbs later. We price a shipment at what will actually get it loaded. Look at the middle of the quotes you receive rather than the bottom, and ask each company whether the figure is what you will pay at delivery.

Yes. The price we quote is the price you pay, as long as the vehicle, the route, the condition and the shipping details stay the same. That is the Smart Price Promise and it is why we ask careful questions at booking about the vehicle and the addresses. If something genuinely changes, a different car, a different city, a vehicle that no longer starts, we tell you what that does to the number before anything moves.